Refugee camps in Lebanon are harsh, continuously and rapidly deteriorating environments. In addition to poverty, numerous wars and the restrictions of civil rights, refugee camps that were not designed as a long-term settlement were made to accommodate their residents in addition to their descendents for a period that has lasted over 59 years. Since the establishment of the camps in 1948 the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have fallen victim to multiple wars and as a result most camps have witnessed major destruction of homes and infrastructure, and a few were entirely destroyed. Today, the planning and development of the camps are highly restricted by the local government, building material is banned from entering the camps and horizontal as well as vertical expansion is prohibited by Lebanese law. According to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have the highest rate of people living in "abject poverty" in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the refugee community and the international aid agencies working in the camps are caught in the dilemma of investing in the development of a sustainable environment in a settlement with a temporary purpose and an uncertain future. This thesis explores the problems facing the built-environment in the camps within the political and socio-economic context, and takes the camp of Burj El Barajneh as a case study for deeper investigation. It then suggests three possible solution approaches that address the environmental problems within different future scenarios. The thesis also looks at the feasibility and requirements of an energy generation plant to provide part of the energy needs of the camp of Burj El Barjneh. Finally, a set of conclusions and recommendations are derived that address the refugee community, the international aid agencies and the host country. The significance of this study is to mitigate a possible humanitarian and environmental crisis in the most dire of refugee situations in the Middle East, with the hope that conclusions drawn from this study can be applied to refugee communities elsewhere in the region.

Throughout history planning codes and standards have been used to regulate the built environment for health, power, order, and economic reasons. More recently, in the urban design and planning field, planning codes and standards have emerged to become tools in the process of “placemaking”. The concept of placemaking builds from the desire of humans to create places, not spaces, which are unique, attractive, identifiable, and memorable. It is a concept that is comprised of visual and social components, recognizing the need for both in the creation of successful places. In the field of urban design and planning, form-based codes (FBCs) and design guidelines have emerged to become two types of planning tools used in the process of placemaking. This study explores the relationship between FBCs, design guidelines, and placemaking, investigating it through an extensive literature review, and then in the context of the case of Hayward, California through an update of the City’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines. To frame the update of the Hayward’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines this study used an exploratory methodology that combined quantitative and qualitative methods. Archival research was conducted to provide a historical narrative of the City and the Downtown area and a documents analysis was conducted to reveal information about existing Downtown policies and programs. Community participation through the crowdsourcing platform of MindMixer was used to collect community input and feedback about concepts of place in Downtown. The data analysis and findings from these methods were combined with findings from the literature review to formulate recommendations that were used in the update of Hayward’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines document. Keywords:

Anthropogenic activities are responsible for the impact of global climate change because of burning fossil fuels releasing harmful gases into the environment. As a result, the global temperature has risen about 1.18 °C since 1880, causing the global sea level to rise by 178 mm over the past century. This is a threat to countries that are closer to the ocean, especially the low-lying countries such as the Maldives. It is predicted if the sea level keeps rising, most of these islands could be below sea level by 2030. The Maldives has a tropical climate requiring cooling to achieve thermal comfort. Electricity is used to provide cooling which is generated by burning fossil fuels. Due to the need for more buildings and the effects of global warming, the demand for cooling has increased, ultimately increasing the emissions. Therefore, this paper investigated the methods to minimize the building cooling demand by creating a building model of a school in Feydhoo, Addu City, Maldives using DesignBuilder software. Also, to analyze the potential of using solar technology in providing cooling for the building, a clean energy source reducing emissions. The base model of the building showed that annual electricity consumption for cooling would be about 200.14 MWh. Based on the base model, multiple building models were created to understand the best option that can lower the cooling demand of the building. The results showed that having a super-insulated timber construction could be a better option by using improved double-glazed low-E windows and an improved cooling system with a COP of 3.2. This lowered the cooling energy demand to about 103.71 MWh. Based on these results, a solar thermal cooling system was simulated using Polysun software which shows that solar thermal collectors were not able to provide the required cooling to run the chiller system. Hence, another option was explored where DesignBuilder software was used to model a solar PV array system to provide cooling for the building. But by using a better air conditioning system (VRF system coupled with a DOAS) to provide fresh conditioned air into the building, improving the indoor air quality. The results showed that the new PV array system was able to provide the electricity required not for cooling but for other electrical requirements (total of 163.31 MWh). It also resulted in a surplus of 1 MWh of electricity exported to the utility grid, achieving a net-positive energy building.

No description available.

Virtual reality is a technology that has seen unprecedented growth since the turn of the century with increasing applications within business, entertainment, and educational applications. As virtual reality technologies continue to develops and markets expand, the world may see an increased demand for virtual classrooms: virtual environments (VEs) that students may access through immersive virtual reality technologies to receive guided instruction, conduct simulations, or perform tasks typical in a classroom setting. While many studies document how virtual reality is beneficial to educational processes, there is little discussion on how virtual environments should be architecturally designed. Thus one may hypothesize that physical design strategies translated to virtual environments may have similar results. This thesis investigates virtual environments for education by creating several virtual classrooms embedded within a selective digital twin of the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. The design of the virtual classrooms was influenced by current architectural trends in classroom design while capturing unique abilities present within a virtual context. A physical teaching module was also designed to create a platform for educators within the university to deliver instruction within the virtual campus.

This research puts forth an examination of the relationship between municipal planning and short line freight railroads. Methodologically, it employs a content analysis framework that explores local master plans and zoning bylaws for the presence of concepts relevant to short line railroads. A historically omitted topic, the railroads are found to be frequently omitted from plans, often conflicting with civic and recreational interests despite their increasingly efficient ability, economic and environmental, to service numerous industries. Zoning bylaws show a disfavor to these entities, and at times may exceed their authority. Moreover, they may create physical and legal limitations to new, rail-sustained industry, as well as the rehabilitation of former industrial clusters. Findings related to regulatory preemption, transportation and land use policy, corridor conversion, and shifting land use patterns are presented. Consequentially, daunting implications may resonate for both the railroad and municipalities. Recommendations encompass municipal, regional, and state policy, as well as opportunities for multi-agency collaboration, economic development initiatives, and revised regulatory structures.

California is headed into its fifth consecutive year of drought, and climate change is expected to bring more frequent and severe droughts to the state. The state’s water supply is susceptible to drought as seen from the effects of the current dry period. Besides the clear impacts of drought, there are less obvious environmental, economic, and social costs, such as land subsidence from groundwater overdraft, and the consequences of urban tree and green space loss. As a uniquely climate-independent source, desalinated water can stabilize California’s water supply and lessen some of these drought-related impacts. Although seawater desalination is touted as the most costly and energy-intensive method for augmenting water supply, if implemented in a feasible manner, the technology provides a range of positive benefits for drought-prone California in the long term. This thesis analyzes the economic and environmental costs of using desalination to mitigate the effects of drought in California. The thesis explores both Australian and Californian desalination facilities as case studies for evaluating the benefits and impacts of using different methods of desalination, in an effort to determine which method would be the most beneficial for securing California’s water supply. It concludes that lower-capacity, flexible desalination facilities would be useful along California’s coast, under some conditions. By generating a supply of desalinated water for coastal communities, more water from the state and federal water projects could be redirected to agricultural regions and inland communities that suffer the most from dry spells, and thereby lessen a number of drought-related environmental, economic, and social consequences.

Our understanding of the effects that human production and consumption has on our planet and its resources has challenged us to think differently when developing new products. In response to these problems, Eco Design has been developed over the last few decades. Eco Design is a process integrated into product and engineering design that aims to lower the environmental impact of products across their life cycle, whilst not hindering design brief criteria such as function, price, performance, and quality. Research in Eco Design has focused mainly on the development of new tools and ways to implement Eco Design in industry. However, there is still little empirical knowledge today regarding the state of Eco Design implementation and practices in industry; in addition to the prerequisite needs and factors to successfully implement Eco Design. The aim of this research has been to review the level and type of Eco Design in the British Product Design industry and to identify recurrent themes helping or hindering implementation. This was achieved through the use of a pilot study followed by a two stage case study design, involving 20 cases and 57 participants across 65 interviews. The investigation and its analysis produced 12 confirmed themes, each generating their own drivers and barriers to Eco Design implementation. This research into Eco Design implementation provides a unique contribution and a timely insight into the Eco Design practices of the British Product Design industry today. The research also provides the novel contribution of identifying the drivers and barriers to implementing and sustaining Eco Design, as well as an understanding of the strengths and shortfalls of the current Eco Design processes and tools. These contributions to knowledge in the field of Eco Design will help future research formulate better solutions to implement Eco Design processes in the Product Design industry.

The outcome of this practicum is the design of an "engineered landscape" that can anticipate, reveal and compensate for disturbances brought on by the Energy East Pipeline on local ecologies and communities.This practicum makes an argument for the increased consideration of qualitative values in contemporary landscape mitigation practice. The increased focus on qualitative values in landscape mitigation combined with the provision of facilities and landscapes necessary to build knowledge, skills and resources will result in landscapes and spaces that facilitate the empowerment of communities as stewards of the environment in the face of globalized industrialization and decreased federal/provincial funding. / February 2016

In order to obtain credit for an eco-roof in building energy load calculations the steady state and time-varying thermal properties (thermal mass with evapotranspiration) must be fully understood. The following study presents results of experimentation and modeling in an effort to develop dynamic thermal mass performance metrics for eco-roof systems. The work is focused on understanding the thermal parameters (foliage & soil) of an eco-roof, further validation of the EnergyPlus Green Roof Module and development of a standardized metric for assessing the time-varying thermal benefits of eco-roof systems that can be applied across building types and climate zones. Eco-roof foliage, soil and weather parameters were continuously collected at the Green Roof Integrated PhotoVoltaic (GRIPV) project from 01/20/2011 to 08/28/2011. The parameters were used to develop an EnergyPlus eco-roof validation model. The validated eco-roof model was then used to estimate the Dynamic Benefit for Massive System (DBMS) in 4 climate-locations: Portland Oregon, Chicago Illinois, Atlanta Georgia and Houston Texas. GRIPV30 (GRIPV soil with 30% soil organic matter) was compared to 12 previously tested eco-roof soils. GRIPV30 reduced dry soil conductivity by 50%, increased field capacity by 21% and reduced dry soil mass per unit volume by 60%. GRIPV30 soil had low conductivity at all moisture contents and high heat capacity at moderate and high moisture content. The characteristics of the GRIPV30 soil make it a good choice for moisture retention and reduction of heat flux, improved thermal mass (heat storage) when integrating an eco-roof with a building. Eco-roof model validation was performed with constant seasonal moisture driven soil properties and resulted in acceptable measured - modeled eco-roof temperature validation. LAI has a large impact on how the Green Roof Module calculates the eco-roof energy balance with a higher impact on daytime (measured - modeled) soil temperature differential and most significant during summer. DBMS modeling found the mild climates of Atlanta Georgia and Houston Texas with eco-roof annual DBMS of 1.03, 3% performance improvement above the standard building, based on cooling, heating and fan energy consumption. The Chicago Illinois climate with severe winter and mild spring/summer/fall has an annual DBMS of 1.01. The moderate Portland Oregon climate has a below standard DBMS of 0.97.