>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The Smart Renewable Energy project at the University of The Western Cape, under the guidance of the Intelligent Systems and Advanced Telecommunication (ISAT) group, aims at developing a dynamic system that enables users to (1) design smart architectures for next generation wind and solar systems to meet African power challenges (2) use these architectures to dimension the underlying solar and wind power systems and (3) simulate, implement and evaluate the performance of such power systems. The project's existing web and mobile monitoring system will undergo a much needed upgrade to cater for monitoring of the existing system's environmental and battery bank parameters. This will be implemented by allowing users to monitor input, storage and output trends over various time frames. These time frames would include hourly, daily, weekly and monthly readings. The visual evaluation of the system will be generated by mathematical, statistical and machine learning techniques. Trends will be discovered that will allow users to optimize the system's efficiency and their usage patterns. The accompanied dimensioning system will allow users to cater for their needs in a two way fashion. Users will be able to specify the number of devices that they want to run from a solar or wind based system and their power needs will be generated. They will also be able to determine what a given system is capable of producing and the number of devices that can be used simultaneously, as a result. / National Research Foundation (NRF) and Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF)

This thesis is an attempt to address the phenomenon of the sun in architecture. Particular use is made of the notions of warmth, light, shadow and energy as form generators. Of specific concern is how one structure can work in harmony within its environment and existing constraints. An analysis of an existing building is performed, with an eye to its strengths and weaknesses as a residence. It is an interesting challenge for an architect to take an undistinguished building - one designed for a bygone age of surplus energy - to identify those substantive elements to be retained and reused, those which are to be eliminated or substantially altered, and then harmonize them, in conjunction with a new plan, in order to create a warm, energy efficient, aesthetically appealing, and ultimately livable family residence. The possibilities concerning the highest and best changes to be made to improve the use of an existing structure are first identified. This thesis shows how a physically and spiritually cold, unattractive, and unremarkable building, one of little or no architectural merit, can be transformed - through improved natural light and heat - to create a better environment for a family. / Master of Architecture

La crise pétrolière de 1974 frappe de plein fouet la consommation énergétique. Cette crise bouleverse d’abord la consommation quotidienne, les entreprises qui consomment beaucoup d’énergie (acier, automobile, … etc.), puis l’État qui voit se réduire les taxes pétrolières pour régulariser le marché public. Ainsi les citadins, surtout les parisiens, qui ont peu de ressources énergétiques doivent changer leurs habitudes de consommation. Réduire la consommation énergétique dans la construction devient une nécessité et l’État doit montrer l’exemple. Les bâtiments publics, neufs, rénovés ou restaurés servent d’exemple et illustrent les prises de position de l’État. S’occuper des économies d’énergie dans des bâtiments publics, c’est montrer l’intérêt que l’État manifeste vis-à-vis du domaine public. Le but de ce projet est de reconstituer les manières de repartir les traditions et les décisions dans la gestion énergétique et les nouveaux moyens techniques appliqués à la construction des édifices. Les résultats mettent en évidence cette problématique à travers l’étude de quelques bâtiments publics réalisés/édifiés en Île-de-France rapidement après la crise pétrolière de 1974. / The oil crisis of 1974 strikes quite hard the energy consumption. First of all, this crisis has disturbed the daily consumption, the companies which consume a lot of energy (steel, automobile, etc.) Then the State which reduced the oil taxes to settle the public market. The citizens, especially the Parisians who have a little reserve of energy resources may need to change their consumption habits. Reducing the energy consumption in the buildings becomes a necessity and the government has to show the example. The public, new, renewed or restored buildings, display the examples that the government wants to give of its new position. Dealing with the question of energy savings in public buildings, is also showing the governmental interest towards its public sector. See how the traditions and the decisions in the energy management and the new technical means applied to the construction of buildings are the purposes of this research, which highlights this problem and applies it to some of the public buildings realized recently after the oil crisis of 1974 in Ile-de-France .

The present PhD. thesis deals with the systems of building services (namely heating, ventilating and air conditioning, shading) which provide required indoor microclimate inside the immovable heritage. The work thus combines the exclusively technical field of building services (BS) and the general principles of heritage conservation. The aim of my PhD. thesis is the analysis of immovable heritage conservation processes, focusing on the current state of research and BS systems documentation. Furthermore the work concerns the possibilities of temporary measurements of indoor climate parameters inside the immovable heritage, and aims to develop a computer model (in BSim software) for the simulation of various working conditions in the selected buildings. For the stated aims were selected three representative historic houses: historical assembly hall at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology; the Palm Greenhouse at Lednice Chateau in Moravia; and Villa Tugendhat in Brno. These buildings had been surveyed for several years, and in this PhD. thesis I present their analysis, evaluation, and conclusions. The aims of this PhD. thesis broadly correspond to the transnational objectives. The present research is, for example, in accordance with the international document ICOMOS Charter (Zimbabwe, 2013) which is concerned with the analysis, conservation, and restoration of architectural heritage. The research of immovable heritage is also supported by European Union, e.g. by the Seventh Framework Programme of EU.