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This study investigates the impact and economic viability of energy-efficient building envelope and orientation for contributing net zero energy building (NZEB) and suggests optimum thermal insulation thickness, optimum wall thickness, appropriate orientation and glazing types of window in the contexts of unique Bangladeshi subtropical monsoon climate.

The whole study was conducted through energy simulation perspective of an existing office building using building information modeling (BIM) and building energy modeling (BEM) tools which are Autodesk Revit 2017, Autodesk Green Building Studio (GBS) and eQUEST. Numerous simulation patterns were created for energy simulation considering building envelope parameters and orientations. A comprehensive data analysis of simulation results was conducted to sort out efficient passive design strategies.

The optimum thermal mass and thermal insulation thickness are 6.5 and 0.5 inches, respectively, considering energy performance and economic viability. This study highly recommends that a building should be designed with a small window-to-wall ratio in the south and west face. The window should be constructed with double glazing Low-E materials to reduce solar heat gain. The studied building saves 9.14% annual energy consumption by incorporating the suggested passive design strategies of this study.

The output of this work can add some new energy-efficient design strategies to Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) because BNBC has not suggested any codes or regulations regarding energy-efficient passive design strategies. It will also be useful to designers of Bangladesh and other countries with similar subtropical climatic contexts which are located in Southeast Asia and Northern Hemisphere of Earth.

This study aims to develop a web-based tool – LEED Energy Performance Online Submission Tool (LEPOST) to reduce the submission cost of the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) application process and facilitate green building design. Lifecycle cost reduction is a major driver for designing green buildings. LEED rating system has been well recognised and widely used in the green building industry. However, certification cost incurred in time and money is often a deterrent for some projects.

LEPOST automatically maps EnergyPlus and eQUEST energy simulation results to the LEED energy performance requirement submission templates using an extensible markup language (XML) data structure. It incorporates the Energy Star Target Finder online engine and current utility data to calculate points required to assess LEED Energy and Atmosphere Prerequisite 2 and Credit 1 automatically.

A comparative case study is conducted using an office building project. The study results show that the tool can reduce the amount of time for the LEED energy performance evaluation and submission process from more than 6 hours to 2 minutes. The total number of manual data entries is reduced from 442 to 20.

Future work includes the update to support LEED V4, the development of a parametric design function that can help design teams perform design alternatives to evaluate energy performance with minimum effort, and the integration with the LEED Online system.

The use of the tool by the building industry may decrease the cost of LEED certification for building owners, developers and design teams by simplifying the submission process.

The overall development framework of LEPOST contributes to the knowledge of the data interoperability in the building sector by demonstrating a viable solution to extract and map digital model information for achieving code and standard compliance purposes.

Vacation rental homes, in general, have different energy usage characteristics than traditional residential homes mainly because of the occupancy pattern that changes on a weekly basis. These homes, predominantly larger in size, offer a greater scope for energy savings also because of the wasteful habits of their seasonal occupants. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causes of energy inefficiencies prevalent in these homes so that appropriate retrofit choices can be offered to homeowners.

This research presents a case study of a vacation rental home whose energy consumption was investigated in depth and energy inefficiencies identified through modeling using energy modeling software, eQUEST. Simulations were performed to identify viable retrofit scenarios.

While improvement in the building envelope such as providing shades/overhangs on the windows, reducing infiltration and increasing insulation of the exterior wall did not show promising results for savings on energy cost, other improvements such as use of highly efficient lamps, tank-less water heater system and occupancy sensors showed viable investment options with shorter payback periods. It was also found that energy use intensity of sampled houses was about half of the average of US residential buildings, which could primarily be attributed to the seasonal nature of occupancy of these houses.

There is a dearth of literature pertaining to energy efficiency-related retrofits of coastal vacation homes. This research fills that gap to some extent by addressing this issue with an ultimate aim of assisting homeowners in retrofit decision-making.

Application of appropriate shading device strategies in buildings can reduce direct solar heat gain through windows as well as optimize cooling and artificial lighting load. This study investigates the impact of common shading devices such as overhangs, fins, horizontal blinds, vertical blinds and drapes on energy consumption of an office building and suggests energy efficient shading device strategies in the contexts of unique Bangladeshi subtropical monsoon climate.

This research was performed through the energy simulation perspective of a prototype office building using a validated building energy simulation tool eQUEST. Around 100 simulation patterns were created considering various types of shading devices and building orientations. The simulation results were analysed comprehensively to find out energy-efficient shading device strategies.

Optimum overhang and fin height is equal to half of the window height in the context of the subtropical climate of Bangladesh. South and West are the most vulnerable orientations, and application of shading devices on these two orientations shows the highest reduction of cooling load and the lowest increment of lighting load. An existing building was able to save approximately 7.05% annual energy consumption by applying the shading device strategies that were suggested by this study.

The shading device strategies of this study can be incorporated into the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) as new energy-efficient building design strategies because the BNBC does not have any codes or regulations regarding energy-efficient shading device. It can also be used as energy-efficient shading device strategies to other Southeast Asian countries with similar climatic contexts of Bangladesh.

A systematic approach is needed to engage a broad range of stakeholders to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy use in the building sector. The purpose of this paper is to develop a systems‐based bottom‐up approach for this purpose, and to demonstrate its application in a case study of office building stock in the State of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia.

A conceptual framework for the general method is developed based on a cross‐typology matrix of energy consumption and supply on the one hand, and intervention schemes or policy instruments on the other. This is then tested and demonstrated using a case study of commercial office building stock, with building energy demand calculated using a validated computer energy simulation tool for a representative set of office buildings within a local government area (LGA). The energy consumption and associated GHG emissions are then aggregated up from LGA to the whole State. The impact projections of different intervention schemes are compared and mapped spatially across the State.

Results have demonstrated the significance and capability of the proposed approach, in allowing quantitative comparisons of the relative effectiveness of a specific set of regulatory, technical and behavioral scenario settings on the spatial distribution and trends in energy consumption and GHG emissions of the NSW office building stock to 2020.

Further case studies involving mixed building types and specific building types with greater granularity of modelling details, energy use and supply options, and spatial resolution are needed.

The structured cross‐typology approach is a novel contribution to bottom‐up modelling approaches to designing and/or assessing the effectiveness of specific policy instruments, alone or in combination. It will enable policy makers, property portfolio owners, utility companies and building tenants to assess the broader impacts of their specific actions towards a common goal.

The calculation of buildings’ carbon footprint (CFP) is an important basis for formulating energy-saving and emission-reduction plans for building. As an important building type, there is currently no model that considers the time factor to accurately calculate the CFP of hospital building throughout their life cycle. This paper aims to establish a CFP calculation model that covers the life cycle of hospital building and considers time factor.

On the basis of field and literature research, the basic framework is built using dynamic life cycle assessment (DLCA), and the gray prediction model is used to predict the future value. Finally, a CFP model covering the whole life cycle has been constructed and applied to a hospital building in China.

The results applied to the case show that the CO₂ emission in the operation stage of the hospital building is much higher than that in other stages, and the total CO₂ emission in the dynamic and static analysis operation stage accounts for 83.66% and 79.03%, respectively; the difference of annual average emission of CO₂ reached 28.33%. The research results show that DLCA is more accurate than traditional static life cycle assessment (LCA) when measuring long-term objects such as carbon emissions in the whole life cycle of hospital building.

This research established a carbon emission calculation model that covers the life cycle of hospital building and considered time factor, which enriches the research on carbon emission of hospital building, a special and extensive public building, and dynamically quantifies the resource consumption of hospital building in the life cycle. This paper provided a certain reference for the green design, energy saving, emission reduction and efficient use of hospital building, obviously, the limitation is that this model is only applicable to hospital building.

Arguments for the design of sustainable university buildings have emerged in South Africa. Energy being a major determinant of the sustainability of buildings, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of various building and indoor environmental parameters on the energy performance of university buildings in South Africa.

A quantitative survey research method, administered within the context of university buildings in South Africa, was used. Data about 16 buildings from three universities were collected. Relevant, inferential statistical analyses were conducted to examine the relative influence of the building parameters on the energy consumed in the buildings. Also, regression models within building parameters were developed independently and in a combination that could be used to estimate energy consumption in the university buildings.

Findings suggested that building and indoor environmental parameters of humidity, indoor temperature, volume, illumination, and window width ratio (WWR), in that order, influenced energy consumption significantly, and also, had direct empirical relationships.

Optimising the building and indoor environmental parameters in design will enhance energy-efficiency in university buildings in South Africa.

This study contributes to the literature in terms of understanding the order of influence of building parameters on energy consumption in university buildings in the temperate climatic zone of South Africa. It also established empirical models between building and indoor environmental parameters and energy consumption, both independently and in combination, that could assist in designing energy-efficient and sustainable university buildings.

Each amusement park has a wayfinding system, while symbols are important mediums to guide tourists to find their destinations. It is very important that whether the meanings of symbols recognized by tourists immediately. This paper mainly discusses the recognition of graphic symbols in amusement park, and proposes the improvement suggestions. Materials for this study were drawn from 20 different graphic symbols of a theme amusement park in Taiwan. The testees were required to evaluate the design of graphic symbols based on symbolic meaning and graphics recognition to summarize the confusion matrix. The results show that there are three groups of graphic symbols easy to be confused, and five symbols not meeting a criterion of 67 per cent correct responses. The reasons were discussed, and improvement and relevant suggestions have been proposed, which may be helpful to redesign of symbols.

The purpose of this paper is to present research that analyses the energy performance and occupancy satisfaction in two very similar buildings that have been designed, constructed and are in use by one government department within the UK.

The work presented applies post occupancy evaluation (POE), metered data and benchmarking to evaluate the two case study buildings.

Findings are related to a (BRE environmental assessment method) BREEAM assessment that was undertaken for one building, but not for the other. Results show that these closely related cases have similar occupancy satisfaction levels, but rather different energy performance. This last aspect is thought to be due to differences in functions of the buildings. Surprisingly, the use of a BREEAM assessment during the design stage has not contributed to making the case involved more energy efficient.

This paper only compares two cases, with all inherent limitations. The methodology is limited to POE and metered data; no full monitoring or thermal simulation efforts have been conducted at this stage.

The project demonstrates that very similar buildings might perform differently. Findings raise some questions over the impact that can be expected from BREEAM ratings.

The study of two closely related buildings provides interesting information to practitioners on factors that might be underrated in current design methods and performance assessment ratings.

The purpose of this study is to identify an objective energy performance assessment method in Korea, and to build a building information modelling (BIM) based system that can assess the energy performance of buildings.

The energy performance assessment methods currently used in Korea were first identified via a literature review. A system was then implemented to solve the problem of objectivity. The system was implemented through a data‐based building information model, instead of the existing method of documented two‐dimensional (2D) CAD. In addition, Revit Architecture (a BIM tool), MS Access, and Visual Basic (VB) were used to implement the system. To verify the system's efficiency, it was compared to the existing method by applying both to an actual case (a school facility).

This study found that the issue of subjectivity in the Korean energy performance assessment method may be resolved with a data‐based BIM.

This study presented the BIM‐EPAS to reduce errors and the time needed to conduct an energy performance assessment. In order to follow a realistic approach, the BIM‐EPAS was applied to an actual assessment case, thereby verifying the system's applicability.