The rental price adjustment mechanism is a fundamental component of the model for forecasting future office space requirements. This is an important area of study given the increasing significance of office buildings in the urban environment. This has resulted from the large growth in service oriented employment. Very little academic work has been completed in this area because of the lack of sufficient data. To date, only the U.S. market has been examined. The objective of this thesis is model the rental price adjustment mechanism in the Canadian office market. The intent is to further test the theory in this area, provide a comparison with the results obtained in the U.S., and provide some insight into the workings of the Canadian office market. This thesis reviews the relevant literature on inventory theory, and empirical work performed on the housing market and on data from the U.S. office market. The review points to a series of propositions about the rental price adjustment mechanism in the office market, the most important being the strong relationship between rents and vacancies. The extensions to the model developed in this paper are the specification of the vacancy variable in non linear terms and an attempt to include some proxy for growth expectations. The model is tested using data from Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. The data has been collected primarily from the Royal LePage Market Survey. Visual inspection of the data uncovers unique characteristics in each individual office market. The underlying reasons point to the importance of integrating growth expectations in the model. The regression results support some degree of asymmetric price behaviour, however the specification of the vacancy variable in non linear terms is not conclusive. Inflation expectations seem to be important as landlords attempt to pass inflationary rises on to the tenants. Operating costs and interest rates do not appear to be significant factors in the model. This leads to the conclusion that they are not important in the cost of holding inventory in the short run. Finally, the proxy used for growth expectations is not significant. The most likely reason for this result is that the variable is not properly specified. The low explanatory power of the model may be attributed to the misspecification of the growth proxy and limitations in the data set. Both of these factors should be considered in future work in this area. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Using natural ventilation to provide ventilation and/or cooling in commercial buildings has a number of direct benefits to the environment, building occupants, building owners, and architects. Despite advances now occurring in design methods, major obstacles still need to be overcome before a wide spread adoption of natural ventilation technologies will be seen. Most importantly, simple tools that can be used by architects in the initial stages of design of naturally ventilated buildings are required. Existing natural ventilation design rules of thumb were identified from published literature and building codes and standards. A computer model, capable of simulating both naturally induced airflow rates and building thermal performance, was used to evaluate natural ventilation performance in terms of ability to avoid overheating and provide ventilation for indoor air quality. First the effect of changes to building design parameters on the natural ventilation performance of a base case office building were investigated. Secondly, the validity and limitations of existing rules of thumb were evaluated. The base case building was a three story cross ventilated office building surrounded by large local wind and solar obstructions, simulated with climate data for the cities of Vancouver and Toronto. It was found that the development of most of the existing rules of thumb has been based on incomplete research, and the conditions under which they can be applied are poorly defined. When the limitations of these rules of thumb were investigated, it was found that the original rules of thumb are generally not accurate for either the climates of Vancouver or Toronto. More accurate ranges of applicability were developed for each rule of thumb for each of the two climates. The relative influence of design parameters on reducing overheating and increasing ventilation rates for indoor air quality were also established, and can be used to provide guidance into how changes made to the building form and fabric can effect overheating and indoor air quality.

Using natural ventilation to provide ventilation and/or cooling in commercial buildings has a number of direct benefits to the environment, building occupants, building owners, and architects. Despite advances now occurring in design methods, major obstacles still need to be overcome before a wide spread adoption of natural ventilation technologies will be seen. Most importantly, simple tools that can be used by architects in the initial stages of design of naturally ventilated buildings are required. Existing natural ventilation design rules of thumb were identified from published literature and building codes and standards. A computer model, capable of simulating both naturally induced airflow rates and building thermal performance, was used to evaluate natural ventilation performance in terms of ability to avoid overheating and provide ventilation for indoor air quality. First the effect of changes to building design parameters on the natural ventilation performance of a base case office building were investigated. Secondly, the validity and limitations of existing rules of thumb were evaluated. The base case building was a three story cross ventilated office building surrounded by large local wind and solar obstructions, simulated with climate data for the cities of Vancouver and Toronto. It was found that the development of most of the existing rules of thumb has been based on incomplete research, and the conditions under which they can be applied are poorly defined. When the limitations of these rules of thumb were investigated, it was found that the original rules of thumb are generally not accurate for either the climates of Vancouver or Toronto. More accurate ranges of applicability were developed for each rule of thumb for each of the two climates. The relative influence of design parameters on reducing overheating and increasing ventilation rates for indoor air quality were also established, and can be used to provide guidance into how changes made to the building form and fabric can effect overheating and indoor air quality. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate