This thesis explored the energy conservation requirements necessary to retrofit existing historic structures. Residential and small commercial buildings were selected as significant examples. This study discussed and analyzed the historic, climatic, technical, and economic contexts which impact the energy conservation strategy. The major economic and architectural benefits were identified and described. A methodology was developed incorporating feasible retrofitting measures for historic buildings. This included technical and economic ranking of retrofitting measures with prototypical building type studies documenting the theoretical thermal performance before and after incorporation of retrofitting measures. / Department of Architecture

The City of Indianapolis, in wanting to become the amateur athletic capitol of the United States, needs to provide appropriate housing for training athletes and their coaches in order to fully realize the city's goal of creating the optimum amateur athlete environment. This project provided a master plan for an athlete housing complex located in the peripheral downtown area along the Canal, and near several sports training facilities. A major purpose of the project was to approach the housing site development utilizing Latin American Spanish Colonial planning-design concepts adapted to a North American urban site. Thus, the proposed housing and its site plan serve not only as a living environment for visiting athletes, but as an enduring post- X Pan American games commemoration of our respect and friendship for the people of Latin America. / Department of Landscape Architecture

This research study investigates the extent to which evaluation of housing forms may be affected by functional, experiential and emotional factors. The study also investigates the influence of the Western civilization on the Iranian culture through perceived imagery associated with architectural form.A set of twenty photographs representative of architectural styles commonly found in the city of Tehran, Iran as well as a questionnaire survey were the tools used in this perception study.After analyzing the responses , it was concluded that Iranians were in agreement in their perception of Persian, Western, and Ancient architectural styles and preferred the Western architectural style over the other styles. Iranians associated familiarity with newness. Throughout the study it was evident that the Western civilization had a strong influence on the Iranian culture in the perception and preference of architectural forms. / Department of Urban Planning

In recent years there has been an increasing trend in the provision of central heating and split vapour compression air conditioning systems to domestic dwellings in Cyprus. To minimise their economic and environmental impact, this study examines the feasibility and economic viability of energy conservation measures and the feasibility of the application of solar driven LiBr-water absorption system for space conditioning. Initially, the study compares through simulation, the heating and cooling requirements of domestic dwellings constructed in Cyprus during the last century. The simulations required values for the thermal conductivity of local building materials, like the hollow brick and mud and straw block. These were not available, and measurements were performed on a machine specifically purchased for the project to establish these values for the first time. These material properties will be of value to building services engineers in Cyprus and the Middle East for the more precise determination of building heating and cooling loads. Evaluation of the internal conditions resulting from the various types of constructions indicated that the traditional and insulated modem houses, could maintain indoor temperature in winter between 16°C and 20°C, but in the summer temperatures exceeded 36°C. The use of natural and mechanical ventilation could reduce slightly the maximum indoor summertime temperatures, but not to a level that could provide thermal comfort. Window gains are an important factor in domestic building energy requirements, and significant savings can result when extra measures are taken. The savings in cooling energy demand for a well-insulated house may be as high as 24% when low-emissivity double glazed windows are used compared to clear double glazed windows giving a pay-back period of 3.8 years. Other factors investigated are the effect of overhangs, shape and orientation of buildings and thermal mass. The results show that the roof is the most important structural element of domestic dwellings in the Cypriot environment. For good thermal performance, the roof must offer a discharge time of 6 hours or more and have a thermal conductivity of less than 0.48 W/m-K. Life cycle cost analysis has shown that measures that increase the roof insulation pay back in a short period of time, between 3.5 to 5 years. However, measures taken to increase wall insulation pay back in a longer period of time, approximately 10 years. The only natural energy resource abundantly available in Cyprus is solar energy, which could be used to power a low energy active cooling system based on the absorption cycle. To facilitate investigation of the feasibility of the application of solar driven absorption systems for domestic cooling, a 1 kW LiBr-water absorption-cooling unit was designed and constructed. The unit was used to determine experimentally the heat and mass transfer coefficients in the heat exchangers of absorption systems. In certain cases these were found to differ considerably from values obtained from heat and mass transfer correlations published by other investigators. The experimentally determined heat and mass transfer coefficients were employed in the design and costing of an 11 kW cooling capacity solar driven absorption cooling machine which, from simulations, was found to have sufficient capacity to satisfy the cooling needs of a well insulated domestic dwelling. Economic analysis has shown that for such a system to be economically competitive compared to conventional cooling systems its capital cost should be below C£ 2000. This drawback can be balanced by a lower total equivalent warming impact being 2.7 times smaller compared to conventional cooling systems.

This thesis is an investigation of the ways in which activities of house-building are woven into the histories and biographies of the people of Ngamiland in nothern Botswana. Criticising those approaches in anthropology that have tended to see forms of buildings as the symbolic expressions of (or metaphors for) aspects of social order, the thesis argues that building practices are themselves embedded in the current of social activity - that is, of dwelling - which, over time, is generative of both persons and places. Just as every inhabitant enfolds within his or her person a set of relations with others, which are played out in the manifold tasks of everyday dwelling (including building), so every place (including the buildings found there) embodies a set of relations with other places. The first set of relations, essentially social, are captured by the notion of the taskscape, the second set, essentially material, by the notion of landscape. The thesis seeks to demonstrate the dynamic interplay between taskscape and landscape, or between social and material relations over time. The thesis argues for several important ways in which this dynamic relationship can be considered anthropologically. The first is the notion of the 'otherplaceness' of dwelling, in which the inherent interconnectedness of the landscape is highlighted, describing the ways in which both personal biographies and the material biographies of places are mutually creative over time. This is extended to investigate the relationship between social and material permanence in the landscape through an analysis of the ways in which building with concrete has affected everyday dwelling. Another key notion is that dwelling involves a wide range of social practices that can be understood as containing both forces of a centrifugal (movement away from a centre) and centripetal (movement toward a centre) nature, being an important aspect of how social practice and homestead form are interrelated over time. This is also extended in the final chapter through an exploration of the ways in which the materiality of the homestead is interwoven with memory, biography and personal history.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S. in computer science)--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-104).

Thesis (M.L.A.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-101). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Technische Universiteit Delft, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-244).

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2007. / "Langston Terrace Dwellings is a complex of 274 units of apartments and row houses in Washington D.C. that opened in 1938 under the auspices of the New Deal's Public Works Administration. Designed by Hilyard Robinson, this modern housing program was built principally by African American professionals for African American families"--Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [220]-232.