Building fire safety is significantly influenced by building and fire safety regulations (often codes and standards). These regulations specify what fire safety measures should be included in a given building as a minimum requirement. Since fire engineers develop fire safety designs based on the regulations, they are often viewed as the primary agents in ensuring the fire safety of buildings. However, their mission often starts with given building design features, such as interior spatial layout, exterior shape, site plan, and so forth, which are mostly determined by architects (or architects). Although architects design buildings within the boundaries of the regulatory requirements, their focus is not generally on fire safety, but more on visual and spatial aesthetics of buildings. These objectives are linked to building form and functionality, which are not subject to the building and fire safety regulations. These objectives can sometimes compete with fire safety objectives in such a way that buildings can be unsafe in certain situations due to unintended effects of building design features on actual fire safety performance. To determine whether a building has design features which work against fire safety performance, evaluation of building fire safety performance must take into account the effects of building design features. If fire safety performance is significantly decreased by building design attributes, additional fire safety measures or modifications of the building design should be incorporated to provide an appropriate level of fire safety performance. While there have been various building fire safety evaluation tools developed over the last forty or so years, none of them comprehensively considers building design features and their associated effects as key performance parameters. In this context, the current study develops conceptual models for fire safety performance assessment in both qualitative and quantitative manners. After scrutinizing previous fire incidents and the building features which contributed to their outcomes, various fire safety performance attributes, including building design features, are identified and cause-effect relationships among the attributes are established. Then, the attributes are organized hierarchically like a tree diagram such that the performance of one upper level attribute is determined by the combined performance of multiple lower level attributes. In this way, the performance of bottom level attributes propagates upward to the upper level attributes. Two tree diagrams are established for the most common fire safety objectives, life safety and property protection. Each attribute in the tree diagrams has two quantified values: performance value and weighting factor. The current study uses three different performance values (0.01, 0.5, and 1) for bottom level attributes representing poor, average and good performance, respectively. In addition, as each attribute can have different contribution to upper level attributes, a weighting factor between 0 and 1 is assigned to each attribute which represent the relative importance. With these two values, the performance value of an upper level attribute is calculated using the weighted sum method (summation of multiplied values of performance value and weighting factor) which is commonly used in the Analytical Hierarchy Process. As the performance of an attributes is a function of specific designs, building uses, occupants, and site conditions, in the first instance, judgments of the fire engineers can be used to assign weights and performance values, but they can also be determined jointly among stakeholders. Generally speaking, the details of attributes for fire safety performance are not determined at once. Rather they are gradually determined as the building design progresses. This means that in early design building design phase, many of the attributes are unknown as well as fire safety performance. Once appropriate information can be provided to architects by fire engineers at each building design phase, it is likely to avoid possible conflicts between design details and fire safety performance. Using the fire safety evaluation model, weak attributes for fire safety performance can be identified and possible make-up strategy and building design approach can be developed in advance. This provides the potential for the collaboration between fire engineers and architects and at the end for increasing building fire safety performance of buildings.

Smart Grid technology is likely to be implemented in various magnitudes across utilities in the near future. To accommodate these technologies significant changes will have to be incorporated in building design construction and planning. This research paper attempts to evaluate public utility executives’ plans to adopt smart grid technologies and to assess timing of smart grid impacts on future design and construction practices. Telephone survey was the data collection method used to collect information from executives at cooperative and municipal utilities. The study focuses on small and medium utilities with more than five thousand customers and fewer than one hundred thousand customers. A stratified random sampling approach was applied and sample results for fifty-nine survey responses were used to predict the timing of smart grid implementation and the timing of smart grid impacts on future design and construction practices. Results of this research indicate that design and construction professionals should already be developing knowledge and experience to accommodate smart grid impacts on the built environment.

Communication is a challenge in multidisciplinary building design teams. The multidisciplinary nature of the team, in which team members contribute knowledge and skills from within the boundaries of their disciplinary domain, combined with the fragmented building design process, makes exchanging information among disciplines difficult. Addressing this challenge is important because communication impacts project outcomes. While effective communication mitigates project risk, contributes to conflict resolution, and reduces project waste and errors, ineffective communication contributes to project failure. Existing research on communication and teamwork provides us with two key insights: first, the presence of different disciplines – the functional diversity – on a team can lead to both positive and negative outcomes through different communication processes; then, communication in design includes three categories – communication as social behavior, as an information process, and the use of communication technology. However, this research comes from domains such as healthcare, manufacturing, and software design. As such, there are several gaps that limit our understanding of multidisciplinary building design communication: a. As literature on multidisciplinary building design teams is sparse, we do not have sufficient documented information about multidisciplinary building design practice to the extent that we use the terms multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary interchangeably although they indicate different kinds of team functioning. b. There are no approaches to studying communication in building design teams that account for the multidisciplinary nature of the team and the complexity of design communication. Identifying an approach to studying communication is a first step to improving team communication and project outcomes. c. Though it is acknowledged that functional boundaries in a multidisciplinary team influence team functioning, the lack of literature on multidisciplinary building design teams and the lack of an approach to studying team communication means that we do not know how functional diversity affects team communication and outcomes. My research contributes to our understanding of multidisciplinary building design team practice by developing a framework to explore multidisciplinary building design communication. Then, it applies the framework to three cases of multidisciplinary building design teams to explore the effects of functional diversity on building design team communication and outcomes. The exploratory framework allows for the systematic description and analysis of multidisciplinary building design teams, their communication, and their outcomes. When applied to the three cases, multidisciplinary building design practice is explored along three lines of inquiry: What constitutes a multidisciplinary building design team? How do multidisciplinary building design teams exchange information? And, what are multidisciplinary building design team outcomes? Data for the case studies are obtained from interviews of 32 industry experts spanning 13 disciplines across the three case studies. This data is analyzed using content analysis and a communication analysis approach that accounts for all three categories of communication. Findings from the case studies do the following: they posit a relationship between functional diversity, communication, and outcomes that is dependent not only on team characteristics, but also on project characteristics and timing; they offer modifications to the exploratory framework that allow for a more accurate representation of building design practice; and provide strategies used by team members to deal with the challenges and complexities of multidisciplinary building design communication. These contributions – the framework and the case study insights – provide building design researchers and practitioners with insights into building design teams, their communication, and their outcomes. They are intended to be a necessary first step towards improving building design team practice.

O trabalho propõe diretrizes e métodos que contribuem para a qualidade do projeto de edifícios, orientados tecnologicamente e baseados em princípios de racionalização e construtibilidade, dando suporte a uma nova organização do projeto para implantação em programas de qualidade total de empresas construtoras. Os principais conceitos da qualidade são discutidos e as relações projeto-processo de produção são analisadas sob os prismas históricos e contemporâneo, levando a revisão das funções do projeto no empreendimento em um enfoque global. Os conceitos de desenvolvimento tecnológico, racionalização e construtibilidade são apresentados e analisados, explicitando como eles alteram o processo de projeto e aumentam a eficiência da produção. Duas experiências inovadoras de projeto são descritas: o trabalho realizado por um escritório piloto da universidade, envolvendo o uso de protótipos; e uma pesquisa sobre coordenação de projetos, em convênio com empresas de incorporação e construção. A metodologia proposta resulta das diretrizes da qualidade, racionalização e construtibilidade, sugerindo mudanças nos esquemas tradicionais de arranjo de equipe, desenvolvimento e coordenação de projeto para obter a garantia da qualidade do processo. Conclui-se com o exame das dificuldades de implantar a proposta dentro de programas da qualidade total nas empresas de incorporação e construção. / This thesis proposes guidelines and methods to improve the building design quality, based on technological needs and on constructive rationalization and buildability principles. It results into an innovative design procedure that can be put inside total quality management programs for private building companies. The main concepts related to construction quality are discussed as well as the relationship between building design and production process, which is analyzed under historical and up-dated points of view. The concepts for construction technology development, constructive rationalization and buildability are presented and their effects in changing the building design process and improving the efficiency of the construction activities are analyzed. Two different experiences of innovative design methods are described. The first one involves a prototype-aided design carried on by a civil engineering student training group at this University and the second one is a result of a cooperative research program between a private company and the University. The proposed design methodology includes the quality, rationalization and buildability approaches which results in changes to the traditional design team arrangement, the design development and coordination and help for the quality assurance of the building process as a whole. The difficulties for the implementation of the proposal in private building companies are examined.

Kwong Chi Ho. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2001-2002, design report." / INTRODUCTION / SYNOPSIS --- p.5 / DESIGN THINKING --- p.6 / STRATEGIES --- p.8 / PROJECT / MISSION STATEMENT --- p.10 / SITE STUDY --- p.12 / CONSTRUCTION IDEA --- p.16 / ARCHITECTURAL OPPORTUNITIES --- p.18 / PROGRAM REQUIREMENT --- p.20 / TRANSFORMATION PROCESS --- p.21 / FINAL DESIGN --- p.28 / RESEARCH / RESEARCH BRIEF --- p.34 / RESEARCH STRUCTURE --- p.36 / CONSTRAINT RESEARCH --- p.38 / TRANSFORMATION RESEARCH --- p.44 / APPENDIX --- p.50

Dagens samhälle står idag inför en stor utmaning, nämligen att minska dess påverkan påmiljön. EU har satt upp riktlinjer mot en mer hållbar utveckling, vilket Sverige beslutat attfölja, där ett mål varit att energianvändningen 2020 ska ha minskat med 20 % jämfört med år2008. År 2021 införs krav på att alla nybyggnationer minst ska uppfylla näranollenergihuskrav.Detta medför ett större ansvar på projektörer att skapa underlag förenergieffektivare byggnader.Den tidiga designprocessen av byggnader kännetecknas av en initiativrik process där mångabeslut fattas på kort tid. De tidiga besluten som berör byggnadsutformningen har enbetydande roll för hur stora energibehov den färdiga produkten kommer att få. Energibehovetpåverkar både byggnadens livscykelkostnad och dess miljöpåverkan. Den här studien ärinriktad på energisimuleringar tidigt i projekteringsprocessen vars syfte är att skapadesigndrivande underlag till beslut rörande byggnadsutformning.Autodesk Revit har ett integrerat verktyg, Energy Analysis, som gör energisimuleringar avBIM-modellen i programmet. Verktyget är framtaget för att göra snabba energisimuleringarsom ska fungera som beslutsunderlag vid projektering mot hållbara byggnadsdesigner. Måletmed studien var att kartlägga beräkningarnas tillförlitlighet och resultatens användbarhet försvenska arkitekter. Utifrån en CAD-fil på ett hus från Klara arkitektbyrå gjordes simuleringari Energy Analysis som jämfördes med samma hus skapat Strusofts VIP-Energy.Resultaten visar att programmen redovisar olika utdata där vissa ej är jämförbara. Jämförelserav transmissionen i de båda programmen visar dock att beräkningsmotorn i Energy Analysisger rimliga resultat. Programmen räknar förhållandevis lika på solinstrålning genom fönster,dock finns det en svaghet hos Energy Analysis när de räknar på fönster med solskydd.Av resultaten dras en slutsats att Energy Analysis gör tillräckligt noggranna beräkningar föratt kunna användas tidigt i projekteringen. Verktyget behöver dock utvecklas och anpassa enversion för svenska förhållanden och normer för att det ska bli användbart i Sverige, vilketredovisas i ett förslag till produktutveckling i rapporten. / Today's society is facing a major challenge, namely to reduce its impact on the environment.The EU has set guidelines towards a more sustainable development, something in whichSweden has decided to comply; where the goal has been to minimize energy consumptionwith 20 % until 2020 compared to the consumption in 2008. In 2021, a requirement will beintroduced. It says that all new buildings in the EA must be “Nearly zero energy buildings” atleast. This implies a greater responsibility on the drafters to create the basis for energyefficient buildings.The early design process of buildings is characterized by a proactive process where manydecisions are made during a short amount time. Early decisions taken regarding the design ofa building affects its total need of energy when the house is put into use. Energy demandsaffects both the building life cycle cost and environmental impact. This study focuses onenergy simulations early in the design process that aims to create design driven basis fordecisions regarding building design.Autodesk Revit has an integrated tool, Energy Analysis, which allows energy simulations ofthe BIM model in the program. The tool is designed to make quick energy simulations thatcan provide a basis for planning the sustainable building designs. The goal of the study was toidentify the reliability of the calculations and usefulness of the results for Swedish architects.Based on a CAD file of a house from Klara arkitketbyrå(architectural firm) simulations weremade in Energy Analysis and then compared to simulations in StruSoft´s VIP Energy.The results show that the programs present different outputs in which some are notcomparable. Comparisons of conductivity in both of the programs show that the calculationengine in the Energy Analysis provides reasonable results. The programs estimate the solarradiation through the windows relatively similar; however, there is a weakness in the EnergyAnalysis as to how it calculates when the window is shaded by sunshields.By the results a conclusion has been drawn that the Energy Analysis allows sufficientlyaccurate calculations to be used early in the design process. The tool needs to be developedand customize a version for Swedish conditions and standards for it to be useful in Sweden, asreported in a suggestion for product development in the report.

As an engineering discipline within the United Kingdom, fire engineering is relatively young. It has been accepted as an alternative to traditional prescriptive means of meeting the functional requirements of the Building Regulations since the publication of the 1985 edition of Approved Document B, which was one of a series issued to provide practical guidance on the requirements of the Building Regulations for England and Wales. It deals specifically with fire safety requirements for building work. Performance-based fire engineering design methods have facilitated architectural design freedoms and supported creative construction. This research has established that for a successful and holistic fire engineering strategy to be developed; The end-user client should describe from the outset what they want their building or facility to achieve, and there should be an agreed process for this to happen; Commercial property insurers should be consulted and exploited as a useful and intelligent resource to the design team; and Fire engineering practitioners should fulfil their role as advisers to the architect, or building design team, in order to achieve the agreed objectives. However, it has become evident that since fire engineering has become more established, it is clear that we are far from this ideal situation. Significant concerns have been raised regarding various elements of the design process including the ability to consider aspects other than life safety. Within this discourse, the author has outlined their research investigating how performance-based fire engineering techniques are used within building design. The literature review explores key concepts of fire engineering including definitions and benefits etc., and also describes concerns regarding the motivations for applying fire engineering techniques to building design. Survey-based research suggests that greater input is required from commercial property insurers at the building design stage in order to champion property protection and business resilience objectives. A case-study investigation, however, concluded that for a number of reasons, it is impractical to expect the insurer to influence the design team to the extent desired. Therefore, in response to these various research activities, the concept of business impact analysis has been introduced and developed by the author to ensure that property protection and business continuity objectives are at the forefront of new building design, whether the insurer is involved in the process or not. In order to help consulting fire engineers and architectural design teams incorporate business protection objectives in their fire safety designs, there is a requirement for the established British Standard, which defines a fire engineering procedure, to be enhanced. The author was instrumental in acquiring support from the Technical Committee within BSI responsible for maintaining the Standard, and PD 7974-8 Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings- Part 8: Property protection, mission continuity and resilience (British Standards institution, 2012) has been developed and published, led by the author. This significant new Standard embeds the use of a business impact analysis as an integral part of the qualitative design review process. Without following the BIA process as described in the draft document PD7974-8, business resilience objectives may be missed within the building design phase, allowing an inferior package of fire protection measures to be incorporated into building developments. For the first time, this new document will enable the building designer to be fully cognisant of their client's critical processes and the resources required to support these processes. It will therefore enable the appropriate fire safety measures to be incorporated into the building design to enhance business resilience. Initial evaluations of this guide though various stakeholder dissemination activities and a public consultation process has been positive. The potential concerns that the evaluations have raised regarding the role of the fire engineer throughout the building design phase, and regarding the prevalence of BIA within organisations will be addressed in the guide and the way it is publicised upon its launch.

Energy demand reduction has become a global issue involving all countries, including China. As major energy consumers in today s society, the need for buildings to be built and operated more energy efficiently is well recognized. In 1995, the national standard on building energy efficiency in China (JGJ 26-95) was refined and updated to become the new residential Buildings standard (JGJ 26-2010) published in 2010. In the new version, many changes have been made to support the construction of more energy efficient buildings in China. For example, in the new standard, all buildings are highly recommended to install personal control on the heating system, such as by Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs), together with pay for what you use tariffs. Previous practice comprised uncontrolled heating with payment based on floor area. In order to reduce building energy consumption, Chinese government has revised the Chinese building design standard. In the new guide the use of individual room temperature control is highly recommended for new and refurbishment buildings. However, evidence to quantify the extent to which this improvement impact upon on the building energy consumption is currently lacking. This thesis evaluates the impact of updated building design standards on thermal conditions and energy consumption in Chinese residential buildings. In order to evaluate the impact on the building energy consumption, two types of residential buildings have been chosen, one complying with the old Chinese building design standard, while the other complies with the new standard. The study was carried out in seven apartments in each type of building, a total of fourteen apartments and comprised with a longitudinal monitoring of indoor air temperature, outdoor air temperature, window position and energy consumption of each apartment. The impact of the new design standard has been evaluated in relation to a number of aspects, that include building construction, indoor thermal environment, occupant behaviour, thermal comfort and building energy consumption. It is concluded that updating the building design standard has had a positive influence on the building conditions and energy consumption. Furthermore, a thermal comfort survey was carried out in both new and old apartments according to updated standards. The results show that the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model has a efficiently adequate predictor of occupants thermal comfort in both type of apartments. Thereby allowing confirmation that the new control refine did not compromise on thermal comfort. The percentage of acceptable of occupants is higher in new apartments compared with the old apartments.

Building design can have a major impact on sustainability through material efficiency and construction waste minimisation (CWM). The construction industry consumes over 420 million tonnes of material resources every year and generates 120 million tonnes of waste containing approximately 13 million tonnes of unused materials. The current and on-going field of CWM research is focused on separate project stages with an overwhelming endeavour to manage on-site waste. Although design stages are vital to achieve progress towards CWM, currently, there are insufficient tools for CWM. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been adopted to improve sustainable building design, such as energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Very little has been achieved in this field of research to evaluate the use of BIM to aid CWM during design. However, recent literature emphasises a need to carry out further research in this context. This research aims to investigate the use of BIM as a platform to help with CWM during design stages by developing and validating a BIM-aided CWM (BaW) Framework. A mixed research method, known as triangulation, was adopted as the research design method. Research data was collected through a set of data collection methods, i.e. selfadministered postal questionnaire (N=100 distributed, n=50 completed), and semistructured follow-up interviews (n=11) with architects from the top 100 UK architectural companies. Descriptive statistics and constant comparative methods were used for data analysis. The BaW Framework was developed based on the findings of literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews. The BaW Framework validation process included a validation questionnaire (N=6) and validation interviews (N=6) with architects. Key research findings revealed that: BIM has the potential to aid CWM during design; Concept and Design Development stages have major potential in helping waste reduction through BIM; BIM-enhanced practices (i.e. clash detection, detailing, visualisation and simulation, and improved communication and collaboration) have impacts on waste reduction; BIM has the most potential to address waste causes (e.g. ineffective coordination and communication, and design changes); and the BaW Framework has the potential to enable improvements towards waste minimisation throughout all design stages. Participating architects recommended that the adoption of the BaW Framework could enrich both CWM and BIM practices, and most importantly, would enhance waste reduction performance in design. The content should be suitable for project stakeholders, architects in particular, when dealing with construction waste and BIM during design.

Being the major energy consumer of electricity and natural gas, buildings consume more than 70% of electricity and 30% of natural gas. On the way to green buildings and zero energy buildings, investigation and improvement of energy efficiency of the buildings will result in significant reductions in energy demands and CO2 emissions / make cost savings and improve thermal comfort as well. Key steps of a successful green, energy efficient building can be summarized as whole building design, site design, building envelope design, lighting and day lighting design and HVAC system design. Energy Plus&reg / software is mainly developed to simulate the performance of the buildings in the view of the above listed points. The design of a building or the analysis of an existing building with the software will show how efficient the building is or will be, and also helps finding the best efficient choice of the whole building system. Thesis focuses on the effect of changes in building envelope properties. In Turkey, topic of green buildings has recently started to be studied. Therefore, this thesis aims to present efficient technologies providing energy savings in buildings, to present green building concept and alternative energy simulation software. In the context of this study, design, methods and material guidelines are introduced to reduce energy needs of buildings and to bring in the green building design concept. Building and system parameters to enhance building energy efficiency and energy savings together with green building principles are summarized. Moreover, whole building energy analysis methods and simulation steps are explained / year-round simulation is performed for a sample building / as a result, energy savings about 36% is achieved.