Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-75).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Highly glazed facades of commercial buildings are desirable from the point of view of architects, building owners, and building occupants because they create visual connections with the outdoors, offer the possibility for a naturally-lit workplace, and satisfy certain aesthetic desires. The physical properties of glass, however—even when part of the best current window systems—means that this form of environmental separation is highly vulnerable to thermal flux from and to the outdoor environment. The transmission of solar radiation to the perimeter spaces represents an important source of thermal influx, and is typically controlled with shading devices. At best, shading devices create a secondary thermal barrier between indoor and outdoor environments, which can lower energy consumption, decrease peak load, allow for smaller HVAC systems, and provide better occupant comfort. The physical influence of indoor blinds, though, is not always so straightforward. They tend to create two primary effects that operate in opposing directions in regards to energy consumption: (1) they reflect a portion of shortwave solar radiation entering the building back to the outdoors, and (2) they significantly increase the window surface area available for convective heat transfer, which can increase the convective fraction of solar gain, and potentially increase the magnitude of the instantaneous cooling load. For these reasons, the overall impact of interior blinds on equipment load and energy consumption is difficult to foresee. This study describes the results of experiments that tested various configurations of blinds in an outdoor test chamber that simulates conditions in a highly-glazed commercial office building. A simulation model that gives good agreement with experimental results was simultaneously developed. This model will allow retroactive parametric testing of blind parameters for the same given weather and internal load conditions. / text

With rights to access now become basic human rights, it demands a tool for building disability inclusiveness assessment to tell how far we have gone to include persons with disabilities (PWDs) in buildings. Calling for more researches in disability inclusive facilities and inclusive education in various international conventions and statements such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the UNESCO Salamanca Statement (1994), the Physical Disability Inclusion Sub-score (PDIS) and the Visual Impairment Inclusion Sub-score (VIIS) as simple, quantitative and more objective tools for assessing higher education buildings were developed here. Other than that whether building professionals have knowledge of the way PWDs access and use buildings were at the same time examined. This study consists of four parts with (1) conception, (2) the PDIS and the VIIS for assessing the disability inclusiveness of buildings, (3) main survey and (4) conclusion. By way of literature review, the PDIS and the VIIS frameworks were constructed and they were fine-tuned with inputs from building professionals and users with impairments in the pilot phase. NSFDSS but not the far more popular AHP was applied to weight the elements under the PDIS and the VIIS for both credibility and practicality reasons. In all, between March and July 2012, 20 building professionals, 22 persons with physical disability and 21 persons with visual impairment were surveyed. The PDIS and the VIIS then developed were much simplified with around 200 items under about 20 categories. Design was weighed by all to be more important than Management. Following that 48 higher education buildings from four universities in Hong Kong were assessed in March to September 2013. The dispersal of the PDIS and the VIIS were found largely due to Design rather than Management. In the disability inclusion performance of different categories, Operations and Maintenance, and Management Approaches were respectively the best and the least well performed categories, and Vertical Circulation and Entrance were the more disability inclusive Design categories. As for hypothesis testing, 13 working hypotheses were developed from 4 main hypotheses. By Spearman’s rank correlation test or the t-test, it was found that building professionals and both persons with physical disability and persons with visual impairment did not weigh the elements under the PDIS and the VIIS differently, and the mean values of the standard deviation of the weightings given by users with impairments were not greater than those given by building professionals. It is evidenced that building professionals somehow have knowledge of the way the physically impaired and the visually impaired access and use buildings, and impaired users are not biased on their experience. Having the PDIS and the VIIS developed, it is in pole position to adjust and apply them to study other buildings such as health care facilities and office buildings. Towards a more progressively aggressive step is to make changes to them to examine the more complex issue of ageing friendliness of buildings for the grey population following WHO Age-friendly Environments Programme. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Not available / text

Abstract Slate and shale are not usually considered as building stone for the construction of entire buildings in the vernacular farm architecture of the area north of the Vaal River (historically known as the Transvaal). Sandstone and granite as principal building stone types were more common. Slate and shale are two different stone types but due to their similar layered structure they are often used together in the construction of the same wall. Current research has revealed that slate and shale did play a significantbutselectiveroleinvernacularbuildingtechnologyintheregion.Slatewasusedforfinishing and solving specificproblemsinfolkbuildingtechnology.Oneofthereasonswhythesestonetypes were less popular as building material is the isolated occurrences of outcrops in the region. Sandstone and granite are more common and readily available. The few buildings constructed with slate and shale had a unique character reflectedinthewalltexturewhenthestoneislaidflat.Becausethe stone is released from its rock bed in thin plates with an almost completely flatsurfaceonbothsides, it is usually laid flatandneedslittlemortartosecureastablewall.Thispaperintroducesratherthan analyses the use of these materials in the vernacular architecture of the former Transvaal region.