The research recognizes the environmental and cultural implications of architectural tourism projects in naturally appealing locations like the Mediterranean, where the impact on local residents and resources are frequently overlooked. The study, which focuses on the energy and resource consumption of tourism projects, examines the possibility of passive design strategies as a sustainable approach for reducing energy usage in hotels. Recognizing the absence of standards and guidelines facilitating passive design, the study develops a design manual adapted specifically to hotel developments in the Mediterranean climate. The methodology involves understanding suitable passive design solutions, establishing analysis criteria for common hotel morphologies and typologies, modeling energy demand, and evaluating architectural design freedom. The study's findings show the effectiveness of passive design solutions with an emphasis on solar passive design and natural ventilation. The produced design manual provides guidelines for integrating passive design principles in hotel projects and achieving architectural design opportunities, with recommendations for optimum morphologies and typologies. The findings indicate that terraced morphology and single-loaded slab typology are extremely successful solutions in terms of both energy efficiency and architectural design flexibility. The study also recommends alternative morphologies and typologies for hotel design, as well as hybrid applications. The findings are generalizable across the Mediterranean climates, giving a foundation for future research into passive design methods in other common areas of hotels, as well as other characteristics for a more complete examination.

This research investigates the effect of window position and size on building facades on daylight entry, energy consumption, and thermal comfort of buildings. The aim is to find a feasible way to make housing more sustainable and energy efficient in compliance with the Dutch Building Regulations while providing good daylit spaces. This knowledge can be helpful to architects and engineers at an early stage in the design process who intend to design a sustainable building. This research is done in relation to the graduation from the TU Delft Building Engineering Master's degree in cooperation with the company Sweco Nederland B.V. located in De Bilt.
This study developed a parametric model based on the NTA 8800 calculation method for energy demand and the NEN-EN 17037 daylight norm. Two different types of reference building are investigated, a middle apartment in an apartment building and a middle terraced house. The parameters used for this study are the orientation of the building, the height and width of the window (and therefore WWR), as well as vertical and horizontal positioning of the windows, and a balcony cantilever in front of the apartment windows. The results show that:
The lower WWR boundaries are independent of orientation, and therefore, the minimum WWR values per orientation are the same. The lower boundary of the apartment (33%) is strongly influenced by the present overhangs, while the terraced housing requires a minimum WWR of 12%. The results show that the maximum WWR for terraced housing is mostly restricted by the BENG1 requirement (25% -38%), except for the south orientation (36%) which is limited by TOjuli. The maximum WWR of the apartment is restricted mainly by TOjuli (33% - 60%). The BENG1 results show that a north-south orientation for terraced housing is best to minimise energy demand (WWRs of around 38% are possible until requirements are exceeded). For the geometries studied, this research suggests a WWR for an apartment building roughly between 30% and 45% and for terraced housing roughly between 13% and 25% as a starting point. On top of that, it is recommended to install windows in the middle of a facade in terms of horizontal position and in the upper part of the facade in terms of vertical position to maximise daylight entry. Glass below the reference surface height of 0.85m should be avoided.
The results of this research indicate certain guidelines, rules, and statements that can be used when working with the new regulations, of which the most fundamental statement: As a consequence of the updated daylight standard from NEN 2057 to NEN-EN 17037, an increase in WWR no longer directly leads to a higher daylight factor, as it did under the current regulation.
Furthermore, this study reveals clearly that despite the fact that energy demand and daylight are theoretically closely related, regulations are separated more. Daylight and energy demand are better separable (and individually optimised) in regulations than expected beforehand.
The methodology used demonstrates its robustness and practicality in analysing complex problems and obtaining validated results. Therefore, the methodology used can be recommended for further research and larger design projects in practice.

At the same time that we’re solving climate change, we are building cities for another 3 billion people until 2050. That’s a doubling of the urban environment. The most extensive of this construction, and especially housing projects for the coming decades, will take place in emergent and developing countries. We, as architects, engineers, developers, and government officials, have the opportunity and important responsibility to give shape to our future. But our decisions not only impact the environment but also our social well-being, economic vitality, our sense of community and connectedness. In Africa, the number of urban dwellings will triple from 400 million to 1.26 billion by 2050. If we zoom into sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of these buildings are not yet built, compared to 30% in Europe. Therefore, I see this project as an opportunity to use the knowledge and lessons we have learned over the past to give these countries a head start in developing their cities. Today’s choices will have an impact on the decades to come.
With the continuously rising temperatures due to climate change and already elevated outdoor temperatures, the current housing situation in Benin is battling elevated indoor temperatures. They strongly affect the thermal comfort and, generally speaking, the well-being of people. With the rapid growth of cities and the shortage of currently available housing stock, builders and developers focus on quantity rather than quality. Many housing projects that are being built do not consider the specific climate conditions. Too often, they follow the occidental low-income housing model (Plattenbau, HLM) and battle temperature variations with mechanical cooling systems (air conditioning) and standard universal amenities. The needed urban infrastructure to supply these new dwellings with the necessary services is expansive and takes time to build. The existing networks are overloaded, and water and electricity supply interruptions are commonplace, even in the cities. Proper waste disposal and garbage collection are mainly non-existent, and landfills are the final waste destination.

Therefore, a sustainable building approach in Benin and in general in countries with a hot and humid climate is not only a way to have a positive impact on the environment, but instead, it is a fundamental means that allows lower energy use and lower long-term costs of use while improving the thermal comfort and quality of life. People want a modern, hygienic and spatially sophisticated living environment and housing of the same standard while keeping a sense of cultural and social identity. Those social and cultural patterns must be considered a “compass” during the design process at all scales.

This paper is part of a master’s degree in Architecture at Delft University of Technology. It is addressing single-person households as they are found to be the most affected group from the current state of the Dutch housing market. This forms the relevance of this study and formulates the research objective.
The theoretical part describes the background of the problem from a market and a historical perspective. It further examines the needs, preferences and lifestyle patterns of this household composition and investigates ‘compact’ and ‘live-work’ as architectural notions. The design case analyses precedential building’s circulation schemes, shared facilities and public/private threshold. The suitable living environment is defined as a live-work building with compact dwellings and shared facilities. The aim of the paper is to provide a design hypothesis for Building 7 for this target group located in the M4H area in Rotterdam. A conceptual design is proposed, but this section is still to be elaborated into a detailed design.

Maintenance plays a vital part in the Circular Economy (CE). Repairing, upgrading and restoring façades extends their lifecycle and reduces waste. The European Union and Dutch government have set goals to reach a circular future: in 2050 the built environment must be 100% circular. However, this demands a tremendous change in the current maintenance system. Façades are often maintained for the service life of only 50 years. Therefore, the quality at end-of-life is usually low. Additionally, due to issues in information capture and management, the condition at end-of-life is also challenging to determine. Therefore, façades are discarded as waste, sometimes way before they are at their actual end-of-life. Furthermore, to increase the circular potential of façades, the existing maintenance system requires change. In this research, an investigation is done into how the current maintenance system can be facilitated towards circular maintenance utilizing digital technologies. Inspections on façade defects are currently carried out manually. Afterwards, this information is stored and maintained manually in real estate software. Visual inspections and information systems are prone to human errors. Therefore, a study is done into the automation of the existing maintenance system to facilitate communication between parties. The Digital Twin (DT) is a real-time computer-generated BIM-model of the mother building, using sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) to capture data. Existing detection technologies are compared with detection sensors from literature, like infrared thermography and fibre sensors. The influence of the recommended sensors on the existing maintenance process is determined. The output of this is a new maintenance system using a DT to increase the circularity potential of façades.

The power of sound is immense. It provides an immersive experience for the user in many different forms, such as noise, melodies, voices or even a song. It is a tricky genre unlike light and temperature, and is highly complex to predict and control the user behavior in terms of sound. Thus, the intention is to correct the acoustics as a post-activity in a real-time response. It can be visually depicted through a sound responsive surface which enhances the acoustical experience of a user. The goal is to realize a physical working prototype which
can be tested for proof of concept and responsive alertness to real time sound data. The objective is to enhance the user experience by developing a sound responsive skin triggered with real time sound and study its impact on the acoustic performance in an open space. An acoustic plugin is also developed to integrate the calculation process within the initial iterative design process.

The aim of this paper is to design a retrofit façade-integrated cooling system for built high-rise residential public housing buildings in the tropical climate and evaluate its feasibility. Literature research into the climate, building design, cooling technologies and case studies of façade-integrated systems were important factors that led to the conceptual designs. Energy calculations and parametric optimization through Rhinoceros + Grasshopper were conducted to develop the façade concepts to suit the cooling load of the chosen building. Material and component costs were calculated to evaluate which façade concept proposal was more suitable and what design constraints were introduced by the limited available physical space. With a chosen façade concept, minor tweaks were made to account for additional issues such as conduction heat loss and the oversizing of components. Façade details with respect to structural elements, moving parts, system operation and maintenance procedures were developed. The overall implications and limitations of the design were discussed with the aid of daylighting simulations and extrapolative calculations to paint a broader picture of its overall feasibility and what it takes to be realized.

Though the perils of climate change on our environment are common knowledge its mitigation through informed planning is widely absent. This research project aims to aid the architect in developing a design which has a comparatively lower ecological footprint and focuses on opportunistic utilization of renewable resources readily available in the context. Within the preview of this thesis the potential of developing a sustainable water management scheme for the Negin safari park located in the Fars province of Iran is studied.
Iran is facing a situation of drought for the past few years which has had an adverse impact on the region. One of the communities to have been affected by this are the Qashqai nomads of Iran, who have been threatened with deprivation of their freedom due to the economic woes brought by drought. The Negin safari park being developed in the region aims to uplift this community and provide a platform for them to be able to share their work and culture. However, the influx of tourists due to the development of a Safari park further increases the stress on the depleting water resources in the region. In turn development of water technologies facilitating the reclamation of waste water, conservation of water and mitigation of extreme withdrawal of resources needs to be studied and implemented.
In order to create a design which consciously uses the water resources and facilitates re-use of waste water, different water technologies have been identified and studied to understand its feasibility for installation in Iran. Once the ideal technologies were identified, a water management scheme was developed which facilitated water autarky in the park. Further on the relation of the built form with the technology was explored. The technologies which were shortlisted entailed requirements which had a direct impact on the design of the built form and its spatial organization. The final product of this thesis entails a customized set of design guidelines for the development of a Safari park in Iran. These guidelines have stemmed from the optimization strategy used in designing the Negin safari park with the intended water technologies.
Adhering to the concept of developing the park as an eco-tourist destination attention has been placed to propose sustainable technologies with lower energy requirement and maintenance. It is believed that through implementation of these technologies the added stress on water demand caused by the erection of a Negin safari park in a drought hit region can be reduced. The implementation of these technologies can also further help in educating the local community and lead to encouragement of widespread implementation of these systems. This graduation project is an attempt to develop an informed relation between resource flows and spatial design in order to enable an uninterrupted functioning of the Safari park leading to prosperity of the region and its people.
 

Nowadays, the energy consumption has a significant role in the entire life cycle of a building. The energy demands keep rising due to growth in population, increasing demand for healthy, comfort and productive indoor environment, global climate changing, and so on. This rapid increase in energy use in buildings represents a major issue especially in regions with extreme climate conditions. For instance, in tropical climates the major reason for the high energy consumption for any type of building is the use of air conditioning. Before the implementation of refrigeration technologies in the building industry and the increase of thermal comfort levels, designers in tropical climates used to tackle the climate conditions using natural methods to prevent the building from unwanted heat and to control the heat gains from the surrounding environment. Thus, this research investigate the possibility of designing a purely passive building in order to reduce at minimum the energy consumption of an office building in tropical climates, combining the bioclimatic approach and passive cooling strategies. In particular, the design objective is to define to what extent can the cooling consumption of an office building be decreased. Different design strategies are implemented and tested through Building Performance Optimization (BPO). In specific, two optimization rounds are run. The first to investigate the impact of envelope parameters, and the second to investigate the impact of the envelope and indoor comfort parameters on the cooling consumption.

The aim of this thesis is to present the outputs of a project in which pattern kerfing techniques are explored for producing responsive freeform panels out of wooden plates. Relevant research such as the ones presented by Ivanišević (2014), Zarrinmehr et al. (2017) and Ohshima et al. (2013) have shown that it is possible to bend a wooden plate by carving patterns on one or two sides of it. By this means, the plate is able to perform both single and double curved surfaces depending on the pattern design.
The main objective of this research is to find out the relationships between the
geometric parameters of the pattern and the bending capabilities of the plate and to put forward a formalized method for the design and fabrication of three-dimensional, freeform and responsive surfaces. These findings lead to complex pattern designs which enable the plates to perform three dimensional and freeform curved surfaces. Moreover, these panels can be actuated as responsive building components which answer the changing performance requirements in a space. In this research, acoustic performance is addressed by designing panels which respond to the changing acoustic needs of a lecture room.
The applied research methods on the flexibility involve experiments with physical models and a simulation in which the effect of the geometric parameters of the pattern on the bending capabilities are further elaborated. The acoustic performance is measured and calculated by means of multiple acoustic measurements.
This research outputs three main items. The first one is a parametric definition which was used to design pattern variations in order to achieve various three-dimensional freeform surfaces produced by pattern kerfing out of wooden plates. This definition is applicable in different design problems in which the design of such surfaces is needed. The second output is a series of prototypes which are produced using laser cutting and CNC milling in order to test the actual bending capabilities of the produced panels and to measure the acoustic performance based on the defined parameters related to the geometry and composition of the panels. The last output is a case study in which the developed design and fabrication techniques are demonstrated for designing a
teaching environment with better acoustic performance.

This project relates to 4th industrial revolution and the digital era and nswers the needs of todays craftsmen. Recent times prove that production of goods becomes decentralized while factories and mass production is being replaced by mass customization and digital craftsmanship. Todays artists and designers often collaborate and create co-workshops, alike co-working spaces.
Author of this project spend half year to research on the needs of todays makers and their workshops along with digital fabrication and mass
customization. That allowed to understand todays crafts and workshop layouts. The most important requirements considering todays workshops were easy reconfigurability, adaptability, connection between home and living and open sourceness. Digital fabrication research led to decision about building method - a digitally fabricated building system utilizing wood and fiberglass composite material joined with CNC milled friction locks.
Mentioned building system had to provide an open source framework which could be easily modified and rebuild with time by the user. On the other hand
it has to be intuitive and be composed of a low amount of elements. All that allowed to compose a system which provided accessible reconfiguration
which is not limited by spans, sizes or floor numbers.