Masa Noguchi

Structuring a Choice Model for Mass Customisation

A mass custom design approach is readily available for the delivery of quality affordable homes today. However, in reality, homebuilders tend to follow routines in their way of doing business and to be reluctant to apply (or buy) such innovative design (and construction) approaches to their housing developments. Their buying behaviour towards the adoption of a new product or service was surveyed by reviewing organisational (or industrial) buying behaviour. The author found that industrial buyers tend to cut down the information search for nonprogrammed decisions to determine whether or not to buy an unfamiliar product or service; thus, the organisational buying decision-making process may need to be well programmed. Accordingly, in conjunction with the concept of mass customisation, this paper proposes a new choice model that helps homebuilders understand the true value of innovative design and construction systems that can be applied for upgrading their mass housing developments.

Calibrating air heating and power generation capacities of low and high efficient BIPV roofs for housing application in Scotland

This study was conducted with the aim to assess the potential performance of a photovoltaic thermal mechanical ventilation heat recovery (PV/T MVHR) system. The device is currently considered for the application to the Z-en house project undertaken by Scottish homebuilder. The house’s whole energy demand was calibrated based on the UK Government’s standard assessment procedure for energy rating of dwellings, while the PV/T performance was estimated using an ‘EESLISM’ energy and environmental design simulation tool developed by Kogakuin University. This study concluded that PV generates heat, which makes the fresh air running under the PV roof 10–15 °C warmer than the outside temperature even during the Scottish winter and this warm air extracted from roof-integrated PV modules can be used to help reduce the domestic space-heating demand. Thus, the building-integrated PV/T MVHR system was considered as one of the effective means to assist the net zero energy operation of housing in cool and cold climates, whose dominant domestic energy comsumption derives from space heating.

The economic value of low-energy housing

Abstract This paper explores a new perspective towards understanding barriers to ascertaining the economic value of low-energy housing. It examines why the economic value of low-energy housing is less transparent in active markets; this is investigated from the valuation principle perspectives of embodied energy and operational energy in residential dwellings. The focus is placed on the composition of energy consumption associated with the housing product life cycle. Low operational energy of a dwelling is linked to consumer preference by the inter-temporal value estimate of expected benefits. However, “low” embodied energy housing is an ecological construct and does not appear to be directly linked to short-term market value or an expected (intuitive) economic motive. This “gap/disconnect”, alongside some practical “barriers” in the market economy, has created a challenge in deriving the economic value of low-energy housing. The barrier to economic value of low-energy housing is methodological and by adopting a life cycle approach to assessing and measuring energy in a house that incorporates embodied energy and operational energy, greater clarity can be achieved which may lead to a better informed market, enhancing transparency and allowing consumer choice to direct and value the broader benefits of low-energy housing.

Zero Energy Homes

In the last 50 years a fifth of the planet’s inhabitants had a strong development that deeply changed their habits and their life quality. For this enhancement, the people of the developed areas paid a high price. A large use of energy, produced from non-renewable sources as fossil fuels, increased the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere with several problems and a huge impact on the nature. As a consequence, there is a need to rethink the design of buildings, cities and their organizations. The challenge for the new sustainable cities is to grow according to the lifestyles of today and tomorrow, while implementing a better relation between the nature and the mankind and restoring the lost human contacts. An option for doing this is to design and develop Zero Energy Homes (ZEH) reducing to the minimum the impact of pollution and the exploitation of non-renewable sources. In particular, the following aspects should be considered: to use of renewable and recycled materials; to improve the energy efficiency of buildings; to introduce more efficient energy systems that use alternative and clean sources; and to introduce building automation systems (to optimize the energy consumption). In this lecture the following topics will be presented: definition of ZEH, including a review of definitions, parameters influencing the definition and examples, criteria to build or refurbish to a ZEH standard and some questions and examples related with the design, construction and operation of new Zero Carbon Homes.

Structuring the Environmental Experience Design Research Framework through Selected Aged Care Facility Data Analyses in Victoria

Humans relate to the living environment physically and psychologically. Environmental psychology has a rich developed history while experience design emerged recently in the industrial design domain. Nonetheless, these approaches have barely been merged, understood or implemented in architectural design practices. This study explored the correlation between experience design and environmental psychology. Moreover, it conducted literature reviews on theories about emotion, user experience design, experience design and environmental psychology, followed by the analyses of spatial settings and environmental quality data of a selected aged care facility in Victoria, Australia, as a case study. Accordingly, this study led to proposing a research framework on environmental experience design (EXD). It can be defined as a deliberate attempt that affiliates experience design and environmental psychology with creation of the built environment that should accommodate user needs and demands. The EXD research framework proposed in this study was tailored for transforming related design functions into the solutions that contribute to improving the built environment for user health and wellbeing.

ZEMCH Business Operation in Japan

Today, Japanese housing manufacturers mass-customise their highly industrialised houses with the aim to deliver quality affordable homes in which design quality, or housing performance, can be defined by buyers/users in consideration of their economic constraints. Moreover, in response to the drastic hike of energy prices and global warming issues, the prefabricators today tend to commercialise net zero energy homes. Their high-quality, zero energy mass custom homes (ZEMCH) that are also reasonably priced enjoy a good reputation. This chapter will identify the essential elements of Japanese housing manufacturers’ business operation being applied for the delivery of socially, economically and environmentally sustainable homes that satisfy the market needs and demands.

AN UPDATE OF A SIMULATION STUDY OF PASSIVELY HEATED RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS

Abstract “A simulation study of passively heated residential buildings” published in Procedia Engineering 2015 showed how circulating 15-17°C water from a 50-m deep U-tube to a floor radiator and solar-heated water from a 30 evacuated tube solar collector and a 2-m3 indoor tank to a wall radiator could keep a 30-m2 Melbourne, Australia house thermally comfortable. This paper presents a summary of the ongoing review of publications together with three updates: - (1) Report on that water heated by a 100-metre deep U-tube is 22-24°C, i.e., 2-4 °C warmer than thermal comfort temperature. (2) May 2016 experimental validations of the simulated results which show that when the outdoors is below 10°C, the temperature of the floor radiator is 2-4°C less than the 15-17°C water heated by a 50-m deep U-tube and 25 W fish tank pumps could circulate the waters. (3) Simulations with the addition of phase change materials (PCM) to inside faces show that though a PCM halves the diurnal indoor temperature variations, it confirms that such PCM does not significantly increase the 20°C temperature in a 2-m3 storage tank at the end of winter. Therefore, the size of intersessional thermal storage would be a problem for family-sized houses. German Guidelines indicate that 1-2 boreholes could provide enough heat for family-sized houses. The heat extracted in winter can be replenished in summer. Thus the geothermal heat from about 100-m deep boreholes with 22-24°C bottom temperature could sustainably keep residential buildings in cool climates similar to Melbournes cool temperate thermally comfortable.