building and facade performance	environmental technologies and social housing	holographic optical elements
environmental technologies and efficiency		assessment of future building performance

building and facade performance

Researchers from the universities of Southampton, Reading and Greenwich have developed a suite of building performance rating and decision-making tools aimed to put urban sustainability into the focus of building professionals.

The research team, brought together as the IDCOP consortium, aims to encourage a more sustainable urban environment by focusing on the maintenance and refurbishment of existing buildings. In so doing, they have found new ways of improving the performance of buildings through their whole life cycle, looking at aspects of energy, comfort and sustainable maintenance. IDCOP translated this approach into a range of easy-to-use explanatory and predictive models. These can be used by building owners and facility managers to assess a building’s whole life performance.

Related to this work IDCOP created a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tool for sustainable maintenance in social housing and a pilot questionnaire of social housing landlords. IDCOP has also conducted studies on new fa?ade technologies, including a full-scale test of a novel light-directing holographic optical element fa?ade. This work was complemented by various environmental building monitoring studies and user satisfaction surveys to identify people’s needs in relation to the building’s facade.

Based on this, a conceptual approach to producing personalised building spaces has been developed, including a prototype personalised agent software system which allows building users to negotiate on the environmental conditions in order to provide an improved building control.

The IDCOP research on the present-day performance of building facades was complemented by the development of a tool to generate climate change adapted weather data which has been used to assess different building refurbishment solutions and facade technologies in their robustness for a future climate. The innovative products and processes developed within IDCOP are aimed at a reduced use of resources whilst improving the environmental quality of the building interior over the whole life cycle of the building. The IDCOP consortium’s work offers policy makers and building professionals a real opportunity to reduce the consumption of resources in the existing built environment.

For more information contact Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj at A.S.Bahaj@soton.ac.uk and link to the IDCOP website .

environmental technologies and social housing

Technological advancements in the last century have created warmer, better insulated and safer housing for everyone. In the last decade innovative environmental technologies such as, on site renewables have paved the way for greater sustainability of our home environments. Furthermore, new insulation standards and improved appliances have increased energy efficiency in the home.

Despite the obvious benefits of energy management and increased energy efficiency to housing refurbishment, the social housing sector has been reluctant to integrate new technologies beyond the legal requirements. The IDCOP research consortium undertook a study of six housing associations to investigate the barriers to integrating environmental technologies in social housing.

The survey of medium to large landlords revealed that value for money was a major governing factor in selecting environmental systems and components and that confidence levels in new products and processes were generally low. Misconceptions regarding durability and performance of these new technologies were commonly prevalent among housing professionals so that housing associations, landlords and local authorities were reluctant to adopt new technologies.

For more information visit the IDCOP website or contact Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj at A.S.Bahaj@soton.ac.uk.

holographic optical elements

The light bulb is synonymous with innovation. Sir Thomas Edison (who famously said that genius is one percept inspiration and 99 percent perspiration) was the bright spark who first brought us light-on-demand. However, over a century later, the heat gains associated with lighting are causing concern as they contribute to summer overheating of, in particular, commercial buildings. Therefore, new ways to cut energy consumption of artificial lighting installations need to be found, preferably by reducing its use altogether.

In light of this demand, the IDCOP research consortium has been testing ways to reduce our reliance on artificial lighting by using Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs) for redirecting direct sunlight into deep internal spaces. HOEs are light guiding elements consisting of a holographic film laminated between two sheets of glass which redirects sunlight towards the ceiling thus creating a bright, naturally lit space.

Their application as a building product improves daylighting which in turn enhances comfort for users and reduces artificial lighting requirements. In a commercial building setting this then reduces the air-conditioning loads associated with the heat gains that artificial lighting produces, further reducing energy consumption. ?

The theoretical function and potential benefits of HOEs have been known for many years but their potential as a building product has not been properly tested in the past. IDCOP has therefore created and installed a test facility integrating two HOEs in front of a facade at the University of Southampton. Monitoring of the HOE performance is ongoing but initial results of the HOE test fa?ade show good light directing performance. However, issues of glare were also encountered. Therefore, further research into HOE fa?ade installation possibilities is currently being conducted in order to overcome such issues.

To find out more about the HOE test facade and to keep up to date with results visit the IDCOP website or contact Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj at A.S.Bahaj@soton.ac.uk.

environmental building controls and efficiency

The Innovation in Design, Construction and Operation of Buildings for People (IDCOP) research consortium has undertaken an analysis of how building occupants use environmental control facilities and how this relates to the energy efficiency of the buildings they inhabit.

Various office buildings, of different age and state of repair, were monitored for environmental parameters such as temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentration. User behaviour was then investigated in relation to the measured environmental room conditions. Furthermore, extensive user surveys were conducted looking at the occupants’ feeling of comfort and their satisfaction with the environmental room conditions.

The researchers found that occupant behaviour and expectation greatly affect the effectiveness of environmental control facilities and, consequentially, the energy efficiency of a building. The results showed that the controls available to occupants were often not correctly applied due to their complexity or unintuitive mode of operation.

This lack of interaction between users and their buildings was highlighted in several case studies. For example, in one case the researchers identified that there was no driver to remind or encourage users to close office windows at the end of the working day. This resulted in a significant waste of energy during the spring and autumn periods when the building was still heated and large heat losses were bound to occur.

Based on this evidence, the IDCOP consortium developed a prototype personalised agent software system which allows users of open plan offices to have more controlled input into the management of their environmental building conditions in order to provide a more ‘intelligent’ building and to use energy more efficiently. Such a system seeks to bridge the gap between fully environmentally controlled buildings and ‘free-floating’ user controlled buildings. It aims to avoid high levels of dissatisfaction amongst building occupants as often observed in mechanically controlled buildings. At the same time user induced malfunction typical of manually controlled buildings can be reduced by applying appropriate feedback systems.

For more information visit the IDCOP website or contact Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj at A.S.Bahaj@soton.ac.uk

Assessment of Future Building Performance

Man-made emissions, be it from buildings, business, agriculture or transport are now commonly accepted to be the main cause of the current trend to global warming.

Research completed by the IDCOP consortium has shown that successful refurbishment of existing buildings strongly depends on the expected future climate. Yet, although there is a growing number of studies looking at climate change implications, the building industry appears to be ill prepared for the predicted future climates.

Therefore, a new, easy-to-use, tool has been developed by the IDCOP researchers to generate climate change adapted weather data for use in building performance simulation programs.

This climate change adapted weather data can be used to assess various refurbishment solutions in their viability for the future. Studies by IDCOP have shown that building solutions that help to alleviate summer overheating under current heat wave conditions, such as observed in 2006, are likely to perform satisfactory up to the 2050’s. However, it has also been demonstrated that many current building designs are at a high risk of failing to perform without appropriate design strategies to reduce summer overheating occurrence.

For more information visit the IDCOP website or contact Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj at A.S.Bahaj@soton.ac.uk