Hisham Elkadi

The impact of applying recent façade technology on daylighting performance in buildings in eastern Mediterranean

Abstract Energy shortage has surfaced in Lebanon during and after the civil war. There is a need to rationalise the use of energy in the building sector. Building facade design in Lebanon is not taking fully advantage of the 12 h daylighting availability. Architects are not conscious of the impacts of the evolution of facade design on energy consumption. The lack of regulation led to over estimation of the impacts on cooling load and much less attention is given to impacts on daylighting. This paper aims to examine the changes of facade configuration throughout the last century and their impact on daylighting levels in Beirut offices. The historical development of facade design is reviewed. Categories of buildings are identified. Examples of each category are examined for their daylighting efficiencies.

Information visualisation for the architectural practice

Information is a critical element for architects to accomplish their tasks. The overwhelming increase in and complexity of digital information has revealed problems concerning information acquisition. New techniques of handling information are needed to improve the transformation of data into information, and then into knowledge. Information visualisation (IV) is seen as one of these techniques. This paper discusses the importance of information in architectural practice and the potentials of utilizing IV techniques to improve the information acquisition process. The paper attempts to construct an application model for developing IV tools. It explores in detail four main factors that influence their successful application, which are: (1) the underlying data structure, (2) information-seeking strategies, (3) identification of IV techniques, and (4) analysing the user profile. Based on these factors, the paper critically examines different possible IV development approaches for architectural practice. These include: technology push, data structure-based and task-driven approaches.

Sustainability approaches for incarceration architecture

Incarceration architecture by definition negates many aspects of sustainability. Natural and humane values embedded in the penal system can be in many ways ambiguous. Throughout history, it was mainly the role of sociologists to advance theories and applications of incarceration architecture. Sustainability in this type of architecture however tends to rely heavily on technical solutions [1 and 2]. There are many different definitions for sustainable architecture [3]. Recent publications claim that the root of sustainable architecture goes back to Ruskin and Morris. This paper argues that the sustainable features of natural and human values on the one hand and the technical issues on the other are inseparable in this type of buildings. Historical review of prison buildings reflects the emergence of new kinds of architecture associated with reform [4]. This paper critically evaluates the design theories of prison buildings. A historical review of prison design is carried out in order to verify the sustainable factors that affected the development of prison design. The review traces sustainable issues in the development of prison buildings. The argument in this paper stems from the theory of space as an aspect of social life [5]. The paper stresses the need to apply social factors as well as technical aspects of energy conservation to achieve sustainable architecture for prison buildings.

Energy performance of medium-sized healthcare buildings in Victoria, Australia- a case study

This paper investigates the energy performance of three medium-sized healthcare buildings in Victoria, Australia, that operate only during the daytime. The aim is to provide preliminary understanding of energy consumption in this particular typology in Australia in relation to the available benchmarks. This paper also identifies the differences of energy consumption between different functional areas within medium health facilities. Building features and operational characteristics contributing to the variations in healthcare energy performance are discussed. The total annual energy consumption data ranging from 167-306 kWh/m(2) or 42-72 kWh/m(3) were compared against international data from various climatic zones. Some of the drivers of energy consumption were determined and potentials for energy and water conservation were identified. Comparison with international standards shows a possibility to achieve lower energy consumption in Victorian healthcare buildings.

Daylight for Strategic Intervention in Historic Towns: The Cases of Cairo and Edinburgh

There is a growing concern about the effects of intervention projects on heritage sites, in particular the way renewing building materials affect the sense of place. In one city, old Cairo, the implementation of renewals has instigated a cultural debate on whether the changes have negatively affected the identity of the area. Similarly, the 2005 management plan of the old town of Edinburgh has also indicated that one of the major challenges the site faces is the erosion of Edinburghs unique sense of place and outstanding townscape through the loss of local materials, inappropriate intervention, and the introduction of inappropriate materials.

Identity : glass and meaningful place-making

DISCUSSING the deconstruction movement in architecture, Noever argued that the Great Pyramid in Egypt (See Figure 1.) could be considered the ultimate expression of architecture because it manifests an idea in a functionally pure form. In the pyramid’s case, a sandstone block provides an indication of the qualities of accuracy and geometric precision, creates a form, serves a function, and expresses an idea. The Pyramid of Cheops also has a definite identity with its place and its surroundings. It is this phenomenon that gives this piece of architecture its greatness. Both its unity with nature and the geometric precision of its cardinal axis help create its uniqueness. Other elements (i.e., the relation to the Nile, the tunnels that were meant to symbolize the passage of the soul to intervene with the stars’ eternal life, and the geometric reference to the death-life cycles of the west-east access of the Nile) respectively, are examples of the Great Pyramid’s strong environmental links. This paper is based on the assumption, which will be investigated later, that culture is a reflection of environmental forces that are placeand context-related. The paper, therefore, explains that identity of place, i.e., the condition of being a specified place, is encrypted in the environmental characteristics of its context. Façades, one of the architectural representations of cultures, are very important ingredients in this process of creating the identity of a place. A deeper understanding of the phenomenon of

Developing an information model to support integrating conservation strategies in urban management

object-focused and largely aspatial. Recent efforts to provide criteria that have spatial as well as aspatial dimensions are still in their early stages. This applies to countries that have enjoyed a long history of conservation policies, such as England, as well as those with very modest experiences of heritage protection. The key problem is not the evaluation framework adopted or the availability of data and processed information. Rather, a major difficulty lies in the lack of an appropriate information model that can relate information on buildings and sites at different levels and different resolutions in order to integrate conservation policies within the framework of urban management policies. This paper explains the significance of the conservation of the historic built environment in contemporary urban management and the way in which conservation has developed from being the moral concern of an elite few to being a key component of strategies of culture-led regeneration. It briefly reviews the limitations of current categories of defined cultural heritage and heritage identification programs in England in providing an information model to assist the integration of conservation strategies in urban management. This is contextualized through a discussion of the case of Grainger Town

The Use of Public Transport in Coastal Australia: Modes of Travel to Work and Greenhouse Emissions

Commuting to work is one of the most important and regular routines of transportation in towns and cities. From a geographic perspective, the length of people’s commute is influenced, to some degree, by the spatial separation of their home and workplace and the transport infrastructure. The rise of car ownership in Australia from the 1950s to the present was accompanied by a considerable decrease of public transport use. Currently there is an average of 1.4 persons per car in Australia, and private cars are involved in approximately 90% of the trips, and public transportation in only 10%. Increased personal mobility has fuelled the trend of decentralised housing development, mostly without a clear planning for local employment, or alternative means of transportation. Transport sector accounts for 14% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions. Without further policy action, Australia’s emissions are projected to continue to increase. The Australian Federal Government and the new Department of Climate Change have recently published a set of maps showing that rising seas would submerge large parts of Victoria coastal region. Such event would lead to major disruption in planned urban growth areas in the next 50 years with broad scale inundation of dwellings, facilities and road networks. The Greater Geelong Region has well established infrastructure as a major urban centre and tourist destination and hence attracted the attention of federal and state governments in their quest for further development and population growth. As a result of its natural beauty and ecological sensitivity, scenarios for growth in the region are currently under scrutiny from local government as well as development agencies, scientists, and planners. This paper is part of a broad research in the relationship between transportation system, urban form, trip demand, and emissions, as a paramount in addressing the challenges presented by urban growth. Progressing from previous work focused on private cars, this present paper investigates the use of public transport as a mode for commuting in the Greater Geelong Region. Using a GIS based interaction model, it characterises the current use of the existing public transportation system, and also builds a scenario of increased use of the existing public transportation system, estimating potencial reductions in CO2 emissions. This study provides an improved understanding of the extent to which choices of transport mode and travel activity patterns, affect emissions in the context of regional networks. The results indicate that emissions from commuting by public transportation are significantly lower than those from commuting by private car, and emphasise that there are opportunities for large abatment in the greenhouse emissions from the transportation sector related to efforts in increasing the use of existing public transportation system.

Turkish D-Light: accentuating heritage values with daylight

Historic buildings have their own cultural identity, which is often related to their aesthetic qualities such as period characteristics (geometry, size, colour, form and shape), materials and construction. Daylight is one of the primary elements contributing to the distinctiveness of the visual environment of many historic buildings, but is rarely considered as one of the components that shape the character of a building when adaptive preservation schemes of historical buildings are planned. Many historic buildings were originally designed to accommodate activities different to their new use and preserving the quality of daylight that originally contributed to their visual identity is a challenging task. Maintaining the ‘day-lit appearance’ of a building can be particularly problematic if the building is to be used as a museum or a gallery owing to the artefacts’ conservation requirements. This work investigated the opportunities of maintaining the original ambient conditions of renovated historical build...

Turkish d-light: accentuating heritage values with daylight

Historic buildings have their own cultural identity, which is often related to their aesthetic qualities such as period characteristics (geometry, size, colour, form and shape), materials and construction. Daylight is one of the primary elements contributing to the distinctiveness of the visual environment of many historic buildings, but is rarely considered as one of the components that shape the character of a building when adaptive preservation schemes of historical buildings are planned. Many historic buildings were originally designed to accommodate activities different to their new use and preserving the quality of daylight that originally contributed to their visual identity is a challenging task. Maintaining the ‘day-lit appearance’ of a building can be particularly problematic if the building is to be used as a museum or a gallery owing to the artefacts’ conservation requirements. This work investigated the opportunities of maintaining the original ambient conditions of renovated historical build...