BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Sustainable built environments: Building design\, building perform ance and building occupants. - Matthew French DTSTART:20091112T120000Z DTEND:20091112T140000Z UID:TALK21367@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Scott Kelly DESCRIPTION:This seminar brings together current graduate researchers from the Department of Architecture to question the influence of building desi gn and occupants on achieving sustainable built environments. While the sp eakers’ research contexts and building typologies vary\, the work is uni fied by an interrogation of the role of the occupant in the sustainability agenda and the occupants’ subjective assessment of their built environm ents. Across all building typologies\, built environments can be designed to so-called sustainable standards\, however the people who eventually occ upy such environments have a significant influence on its performance. Dra wing from the diverse research approaches\, the seminar questions the narr ow technological focus that has dominated the debate of what is ‘sustain able architecture’ in an effort to highlight the complexity of the susta inability agenda\, the possibility of ‘sustainable architectures’\, an d reclaim some ground where sustainability is viewed holistically within s pecific socio-cultural contexts.\n\n*Speakers*\n\n_Kam Shing Lueng_\nMorph ological variations in high-density tropical housing and their implication s for the radiant environment\n\n_Aoífe Anne-Marie Houlihan Wiberg_ \nCar bon certification in hotel sector: lessons learnt and future opportunities \n\n_Juan José Sarralde_\nImpact of users’ behaviour on the energy perf ormance of low-carbon housing\n\n_Matthew Anthony French_ \nThe complexity of comfort in self-built ‘slum’ and government housing: a case study from Argentina \n\n\n*Format*\n\n12:00 Introduction (5 mins)\n12:05 20 mi nutes for each speaker (80 minutes total)\n13:20 Speaker over-run (5 minut es contingency time)\n13:30 Panel discussion with audience questions/ (30 minutes)\n14:00 Close \n\n\n*Speakers’ abstracts*\n\n_Kam Shing Lueng_\n Morphological variations in high-density tropical housing and their implic ations for the radiant environment\n\nThe research aims to investigate how variations in urban form influence the thermal environment within high-de nsity tropical housing. High-density cities emerge in the tropical region to accommodate population growth partly due to rapid urbanisation. Their urban forms have been continuously shaped by multiple forces such as soci al\, aesthetic and economic considerations. The resulting urban form is e xpected to create a microclimate that is distinct from the ambient conditi on. Such effect is particularly complex for high-density housing since cl osely-packed buildings substantially influence each other and multiple dwe lling units exist in the same building. A better understanding of this ph enomenon is expected to facilitate more informed decisions on the way high -density urban form should be shaped in the tropics.\n\nThe research first identifies common morphological variations in high-density housing by usi ng Singaporean public housing as a case study and tracing its evolution fr om 1960 to now. Generic urban forms are then constructed to represent the se morphological variations while holding other factors constant. For eac h generic form\, computer simulations are performed to estimate the amount and distribution of solar irradiation on building facades – a major sou rce of heat gain in tropical buildings. A survey is also conducted to und erstand the significance of the effect of urban geometry to the ultimate t hermal comfort and electricity consumptions of households in reality. \n\ nAoífe Anne-Marie Houlihan Wiberg \nCarbon certification in hotel sector: lessons learnt and future opportunities\n\nT.b.c\n\n\n_Juan José Sarrald e_\nImpact of Users’ Behaviour on the Energy Performance of Low-Carbon H ousing\n\nThe British government has set the target of reducing CO2 emissi ons by 60% by 2050. In order to reach this target\, different institutions are developing guidelines for energy efficient designs to be incorporated in the building industry of housing. However\, despite all the efforts th at can be put in the design phases of new low-carbon houses\, there is pro ved evidence that the occupants’ behaviour might drastically change the energy performance intended by design. By means of computational dynamic s imulation\, this research explores the causes of users’ sub-optimal beha viour\, presenting a quantitative and comparative analysis of the impact t hat different actions might have on the energy performance of a prototypic al low-carbon dwelling. \n\n\n_Matthew Anthony French_ \nThe complexity of comfort in self-built ‘slum’ and government housing: a case study fro m Argentina \n\nThis study compares informal\, self-built incipient (timb er and iron ‘shacks’) and consolidated (reinforced concrete and brick) houses with formally developed and contractor-built government housing in terms of thermal performance and occupant comfort. The research has a lo ngitudinal\, case study\, fieldwork methodology underpinned by adaptive th ermal comfort theory. The case study comprises three adjoining neighbourh oods located in Buenos Aires. \n\nDwelling performance is found to strongl y relate to bio-climatic design influences\, primarily construction materi als and quality. The study finds that while the typologies are easily orde red according to objective temperatures\, residents’ responses to such c onditions are much more complex. Thermal comfort is achieved at a much wi der range of temperatures than reported in previous studies\, challenging previaling stereotypes of comfort and satisfaction in informal settlement s and Western notions of thermal comfort. The findings challenge the gene ral assumption that formally procured\, architecturally designed\, and con tractor-built housing provides significantly higher standards of thermal p erformance than irregular self-built dwellings. The findings support the t heoretical argument that conceptualizes thermal comfort as a social phenom enon rather than a purely physiological response to certain environmental conditions. This argument challenges the prevailing standards\, which are based on the physiological model\, that are extremely resource intensive t o maintain. \n \n \n\n LOCATION:CRASSH Seminar Room 17 Mill Lane END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR