Climate-responsive building design holds immense potential for enhancing comfort,energy efficiency,and environmental sustainability.However,many social,cultural,and economic obstacles might prevent the wide adoption o...Climate-responsive building design holds immense potential for enhancing comfort,energy efficiency,and environmental sustainability.However,many social,cultural,and economic obstacles might prevent the wide adoption of designing climate-adapted buildings.One of these obstacles can be removed by enabling practitioners to easily access,visualize and analyze local climate data.The CBE Clima Tool(Clima)is a free and open-source web application that offers easy access to publicly available weather files and has been created for building energy simulation and design.It provides a series of interactive visualizations of the variables contained in the EnergyPlus Weather Files and several derived ones like the UTCI or the adaptive comfort indices.It is aimed at students,educators,and practitioners in the architecture and engineering fields.Since its inception,Clima’s user base has exhibited robust growth,attracting over 25,000 unique users annually from across 70 countries.Our tool is poised to revolutionize climate-adaptive building design,transcending geographical boundaries and fostering innovation in the architecture and engineering fields.展开更多
Mosques have intermittent operational schedules with short-term occupancy during the five daily prayers.The occupancy level of the daily prayers is a fraction compared to the mandatory Friday prayers with full occupan...Mosques have intermittent operational schedules with short-term occupancy during the five daily prayers.The occupancy level of the daily prayers is a fraction compared to the mandatory Friday prayers with full occupancy.Usually,the same thermal control mechanism is operated within the same large prayer hall to maintain the thermal comfort of the occupants.Yet,the comfort requirements are often not met due to the short span of operation during prayer times.Nevertheless,mosques have a very high energy usage as the same energyintensive system is operated even during minimal occupancy profiles.The current research aims at using a passive approach towards design to achieve the comfort conditions during the low occupancy daily prayer times without employing mechanical intervention.Numerical simulations are carried out on a validated model of the case study building to investigate the impact of the west-facing Qiblah wall as the congregation stands in proximity to this wall.The design alternatives are tested in conjunction with ventilation strategies to holistically assess the thermal comfort of the occupants.Results show that as much as 4-6℃reduction in indoor wall surface temperature can be achieved with a suitable Qiblah wall design,which reduces the mean radiant temperature of the occupants by 2-4℃.Combined with ventilation strategies,thermal comfort can be significantly improved by at least 40%for the prayers during the hottest times of the day,and as much as 80%for night-time prayers.Results suggest that suitable comfort conditions can be achieved without the need for air-conditioning for at least two or three of the five daily prayers.展开更多
基金We would like to acknowledge the work of the authors who contributed to the development of the CBE Clima Tool(https://github.com/Center For The Built Environment/clima/graphs/contributors).This research has been supported by the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California Berkeley and the Republic of Singapore’s National Research Foundation through a grant to the Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore(BEARS)for the Singapore-Berkeley Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the Tropics(SinBerBEST)Program.
文摘Climate-responsive building design holds immense potential for enhancing comfort,energy efficiency,and environmental sustainability.However,many social,cultural,and economic obstacles might prevent the wide adoption of designing climate-adapted buildings.One of these obstacles can be removed by enabling practitioners to easily access,visualize and analyze local climate data.The CBE Clima Tool(Clima)is a free and open-source web application that offers easy access to publicly available weather files and has been created for building energy simulation and design.It provides a series of interactive visualizations of the variables contained in the EnergyPlus Weather Files and several derived ones like the UTCI or the adaptive comfort indices.It is aimed at students,educators,and practitioners in the architecture and engineering fields.Since its inception,Clima’s user base has exhibited robust growth,attracting over 25,000 unique users annually from across 70 countries.Our tool is poised to revolutionize climate-adaptive building design,transcending geographical boundaries and fostering innovation in the architecture and engineering fields.
文摘Mosques have intermittent operational schedules with short-term occupancy during the five daily prayers.The occupancy level of the daily prayers is a fraction compared to the mandatory Friday prayers with full occupancy.Usually,the same thermal control mechanism is operated within the same large prayer hall to maintain the thermal comfort of the occupants.Yet,the comfort requirements are often not met due to the short span of operation during prayer times.Nevertheless,mosques have a very high energy usage as the same energyintensive system is operated even during minimal occupancy profiles.The current research aims at using a passive approach towards design to achieve the comfort conditions during the low occupancy daily prayer times without employing mechanical intervention.Numerical simulations are carried out on a validated model of the case study building to investigate the impact of the west-facing Qiblah wall as the congregation stands in proximity to this wall.The design alternatives are tested in conjunction with ventilation strategies to holistically assess the thermal comfort of the occupants.Results show that as much as 4-6℃reduction in indoor wall surface temperature can be achieved with a suitable Qiblah wall design,which reduces the mean radiant temperature of the occupants by 2-4℃.Combined with ventilation strategies,thermal comfort can be significantly improved by at least 40%for the prayers during the hottest times of the day,and as much as 80%for night-time prayers.Results suggest that suitable comfort conditions can be achieved without the need for air-conditioning for at least two or three of the five daily prayers.
