Influence of decorative materials on cooling load of residential apartments

The influence of a polyvinyl chloride（PVC）-panel on the cooling load of a residential apartment in Mashad,Iran,is analyzed by the DeST-h software.And the summer natural ventilation of the residential apartment is investigated to determine the wind speed into the apartment through the computational fluid dynamics software.The evaluation results of the indoor wind velocity show that most parts of the apartment are comfortable.The cooling load of the penthouse can be decreased about 10.5% or 6.5% when an air layer exists or does not exist between the ceiling and the PVC-panel,respectively,indicating that the existence of the air layer can decrease the cooling load.However,the effect of the increase in the air layer＇s thickness on the decrease in the cooling load is obvious.Adding a thin layer of air between the ceiling and the PVC-panel is a good step toward sustainable buildings.

A New Design of Student Apartment Bed Based on Kansei Engineering and Ergonomics

Aiming at the defects of the products available on the market at present and basing on the Kansei Engineering and Ergonomics, a new kind of student apartment bed which can prove its humanity more clearly is designed, and its design direction is gotten through the questionnaire and the design starts from the real actual needs of students. After the original design was finished, the later investigation on the students was engaged with and made the engineering analysis. The conclusion is that the sum of ＂perfect＂ and ＂good＂ membership rates is up to 64%, hence the comprehensive assessment of the design is perfect. That is to say, this design is able to realize and meet the needs of users, and there is no doubt that it will have a good business prospects.

Electricity consumption propensity of different household members in apartment house

South Korea is an energy-guzzling country.Economic reasons in the country force its households to save more energy.Household energy consumption in South Korea has grown slow compared to other sectors and household energy consumption per capita is lower than the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) average.However,its per capita electricity use soared and expected to keep climbing mainly due to the increasing number of one-person household.To establish effective strategy against a possible electricity shortage,the amount of electricity energy consumption needs to be understood clearly first.We adopted both general survey and detailed survey for people living in apartment housings and collected data on electrical instrument use according to individual schedule.Based on these data,we tried to analyze electricity consumption patterns resulting from energy using activities at home and find out electricity using tendency according to each family member's characteristics in apartment housings.

The Profit Model of Long-Term Lease Apartments Under Multi-Agent Supply

The acceleration of urbanization has led to an increase in the number of urban floating population, which leads to more demands for the housing rental market. With the support of policies, long-term lease apartments have begun to emerge. However, under the multi-subject supply, longterm lease apartments have encountered problems such as small profits in their development. Starting from the background of the development of long-term lease apartments, this study classified the main types of long-term lease apartments, analyzed the four profit models of comprehensive profit, expansion of rent difference, REITs and value-added services based on their business models, and proposed corresponding suggestions on the profitability of long-term lease apartments according to the current situation of profit difficulty of long-term lease apartments and the lack of profit models.

Outdoor Environmental Landscape Design of the Apartment for the Elderly in Southern Cities of China

On the basis of environmental psychology and environment-behavior science, this paper took Beijing Oriental Sun City Elderly Apartment for example to explore outdoor environmental landscape design schemes of the elderly apartment suitable for geomorphologic features, climatic conditions, and humanistic background of southern cities against the background of population aging in China, so as to provide references for the outdoor environment construction for the elderly apartment.

The role of furniture in exposure to non-ionizing radiation in a residential apartment

This article concerns the sources of non-ionizing radiation in a normal inhabited environment. Measurements show that residents are exposed to non-ionizing radiation in levels both below and above the European normative. Excess is present due to the fact that, producers of electronic equipment and appliances, those who use them, as well as those involved in the construction of housing, have insufficient acquaintance with non-ionizing radiation. Producers are advised to increase the coefficient of safety towards non-ionizing radiation by renewing technology. Users are advised to operate apparatus with the lowest possible power, to minimise time exposed to sources, to maximise the distance from them and to renew their appliances. Construction workers should take non-ionizing radiation more into consideration when furnishing of houses.

Evaluation of Embodied Energy and Construction Costs for the Design of Low-Rise Apartments for Low-Income Residents in Surabaya, Indonesia

Low-rise apartments for low-income residents have been built in Surabaya in recent years. They have four stories and many rooms, and the dwellers are all small traders. Because these projects are built with funds from the government, the buildings are designed to consider the cost of construction, without consideration of embodied energy material. As a result, the buildings are not optimal in terms of embodied energy and construction cost. At present, because there are both concerns over global warning and a worldwide energy crisis, the embodied energy in a building is a very important concept for building design, because it can determine usage of energy in relation to natural sources, especially fossil fuels. This is part of the sustainable design concept. This paper describes research regarding： differences in embodied energy and construction cost between different wall materials, including brick, corn block and lightweight concrete in low rise apartments; the optimal relationship between embodied energy and building cost; and which factors determine these differences. The findings of this research show that lightweight concrete is the best material for the building walls; apartments for low-income in Surabaya still do not represent optimal construction design; and that sustainable buildings are cheaper than those that do not use this concept.

An Evaluation Method for the Potential of Old Apartment Buildings＇ Rehabilitation in Brazil

The rehabilitation of older buildings for residential use that started in the last few decades of the 20th century has become recurrent in some Brazilian cities. In Sao Paulo, for instance, this subject is within the context of the revitalization of its downtown area with the reintroduction of residential occupancy in the region as a consequence of actions taken by public and private groups. However, older buildings were designed based on the technologies and regulations available in the past and applied to meet the lifestyles of the time of their construction. This paper presents a method for the analysis of older apartment buildings, diagnosing their strengths and limitations in adapting to both the new Brazilian regulatory and legislative requirements, and the contemporary domestic demands. Requirements, criteria and methods for evaluation were studied, and defined as well as procedures for the application of a method which allows for a physical and systematic analysis of old apartment buildings. It was found that the proposed method can be an important support tool at the moment of studying the feasibility of rehabilitation processes, guiding and providing grounds for the design and building decisions of the professionals involved in these processes.

Ventilation of Apartment Buildings and Nursing Homes

The paper presents the results of the investigations into the indoor climate and energy efficiency of ventilation devices in residential buildings and nursing homes. The indoor climate studies discussed in the article were conducted in a nursing home where room ventilation is based on Meltem Air Handling Units (AHU). Similar studies have been carried out in apartment buildings where CO2 levels in bedrooms were compared before and after renovating the ventilation with Meltem AHU and installing exhaust fans in the bathroom/WC and kitchen. Tenants evaluate the use of Meltem AHU in apartments very positively. The article presents the efficiency results of Meltem AHU with different external air temperatures conducted in apartments in real-life situations. The study shows that skilful renovation of ventilation in old apartment buildings enables to achieve good indoor climate and energy saving at the same time.

Horizontal Fire Spread in a Contemporary Apartment Based on a Real Fire

The apartment fire tests comprise a set of two full-scale fire experiments in a dwelling building made from pre-fabricated concrete elements in April 2013. Two apartments were nearly identically furnished and fully instrumented with thermocouples, video cameras and gas extraction probes. The apartments were ignited successively whereupon the fire in the second apartment developed freely to post-flashover conditions and got the main focus in this report. The apartment was completely furnished with contemporary furniture and objects, and had an average fire load density for residential occupancy. A full description of the fire load, ventilation conditions and instrumentation are provided. The focus of this report is primarily to obtain conclusions on the horizontal spread of smoke throughout the apartment during the fire growth period. Velocities of smoke spreading were measured to be in the range below 0.05 m/s which means that the smoke migrated over the longest distance throughout the apartment for about 3 to 4 minutes while the flame did not leave the initial fire room. The main aim of the experiments was to collect a comprehensive set of data from a realistic and contemporary fire scenario to validate numerical simulations.

Live in Huiyuan Apartments,and enjoy 21st century cyberspace

The Huiyuan Apartment complex is located within the Beichen Finance and Trade City near the Beijing Asian Games Village, and is owned by the Beichen Industrial Company Limited. Consisting of eight buildings, the apartments are beautifully structured, and feature an innovative architectural design. Huiyuan caters for foreign residents.Rooms within this 736 apartment complex are fully furnished, and equipped with the essential facilities of kitchen and laundry, all in a refined decor. The apartments are in the categories of luxury and economy, the former comprising four bedrooms and two sitting rooms, the latter consisting of one bedroom and one sitting room, thereby meeting both family and single tenant residential requirements.Special services are offered to customers free of charge, such as baby-sitting, household chores, including vacuuming, ironing, shopping and cooking, and provision of everyday household necessities. This service initiated by Huiyuan is the first of its kind in Beijing.

The Stress of Apartment Hunting

APARTMENT hunting in China is a roller-coaster ride of hits and misses where maintaining a sense of humor and monk-like level of patience is advised. Step one to finding an apartment is finding an agent. This is essential for anyone too busy to hunt down his or her own home away from home.

Flexible high-rise apartments with sparse wall-frame structure:A data-driven computational approach

Flexible housing resolves the fundamental conflicts between the long-standing structure and the evolving demands.We propose a computational method of optimizing the structural layout of high-rise residential buildings.Chinese high-rise apartment buildings have widely employed shear wall-frame structure in which one big room or multiple small rooms could occupy the same span.Fitting multiple floor plans into a fixed sparse scheme of shear walls and columns is feasible.We developed a computational framework to seek flexible structural schemes.A building scheme consists of a circulation core,shear walls,columns,and boundaries.The computer program automatically adapts floor plans to any drawn or generated scheme.Based on a large dataset of apartment layouts,the number of apartments that fit into a building scheme statistically reflects the flexibility of the scheme.If many hypothetical plans can fit into a wallframe structure in computer simulation,this structure could probably support several generations of unknown plans.Such a data-driven computational method provides the possibility of creating a one-to-many mapping between permanent structure and evolving apartment plans.

A study on courtyard apartment types in South Korea from the 1960s to 1970s

In the 1960s, when apartments were being introduced in South Korea and were not yet standardized, diverse attempts at construction were made. However, due to factors such as the preference for houses that face south, apartment planning principles were unified. The present study intended to find out characteristics that can be applied to the current demands by studying cases of experimental plans among apartments, understanding the plans of courtyard apartments and classifying the cases into different types. The types of 29 courtyard apartments constructed in 1960-1970s in Seoul were analyzed. The apartments were classified into complex types that refer to cases where many buildings form a courtyard, block types, and open types. 2017 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

Heating energy savings potential from retrofitting old apartments with an advanced double-skin façade system in cold climate

Apartments account for over 60%of total residential buildings and consume a significant portion of primary energy in South Korea.Various energy efficiency measures have been implemented for both new apartment constructions and existing apartment retrofits.Old apartment structures have poor thermal performances,resulting in a high energy consumption.The South Korean government initiated retrofitting projects to improve the energy efficiency in old apartments.Apartment owners typically replace old windows with high-performance windows;however,there is still a demand for better and more innovative retrofit methods for a highly improved energy efficiency.This paper proposes an advanced double-skin façade(DSF)system to replace existing balcony windows in old apartments.Considering the cold climate conditions of Seoul,South Korea,it mainly discusses heating energy savings.Three case models were developed:Base-Case with existing apartment,Case-1 with typical retrofitting,and Case-2 with the proposed DSF system.The EnergyPlus simulation program was used to develop simulation models for a floor radiant heating system.A typical gas boiler was selected for low-temperature radiant system modeling.The air flow network method was used to model the proposed DSF system.Five heating months,i.e.,November to March,and one representative day,i.e.,January 24,were selected for detailed analysis.The main heat loss areas consist of windows,walls,and infiltration.The results reveal that the apartment with the DSF retrofit saves 38.8%on the annual heating energy compared to the Base-Case and 35.2%compared to Case-1.

The Stress of Apartment Hunting

Irecently got the urge to move to a new apartment. There were a variety of reasons--it was getting too noisy where I was, the new taxi prices were becoming a killer in the work commute and I needed a change of scenery. I gave 30 days' notice and went hunting. My first two moves

Case study on father-child communication in Chinese urban apartment houses through active RFID technology

This paper used Active Radio Frequency Identification （Active RFID） technology to identify in which rooms fathers and their chitd tend to stay together and talk, and in which rooms they stay separately in seven one-child families living in Chinese urban apartment houses. The father was found to stay together with the child 0.5%-25% of the time when both father and chitd stayed at home. The use of the living room as the place in which the child stays with the father and tatks was found to be highest （five out of seven families）, fotlowed by the dining room and the child＇s room. In over half of the cases when the child stays with,the father in the living room or dining room and either of them tatk, the chitd spoke over 1.6 times more than the father. However, in the child＇s room, the child always spoke tess than the father, and the duration of the child＇s speech was less than 70% of that of the father. Findings showed that the instances in which child and father stay in different rooms fell into two groups. First, five of the seven subject fathers tended to stay in the living room, whereas the children stayed either in their room or in their parents＇ room to use the PC. Second, two fathers stayed in the studio or dining room to work, while their chitdren stayed in the living room or their own rooms. For both groups, the duration

Why Are More Single Women Buying Their Own Apartments?

In recent years, more and more single women are buying their own apartments. China's largest property listing website Ke.com analyzed sec on d-hand apartme nt sales in 12 big cities for several years and found 47.9 percent of the recent buyers are women, the highest proportion in the past seven years. In 2014, the figure was 30 percent.