Category: ARCH 692bL: Building Science Thesis

The project aims to provide alternative scanning methods for heritage conservation using portable devices and validate the data for serving certain preservation goals. It addresses the inequity in resources that limits the preservation of heritage sites and buildings. The proposed approach would make scanning technology more accessible to heritage conservation professionals. The objective is to keep the technology accessible enough for anyone to scan, document, and share what they consider valuable and significant, to benefit the protection of built environment, which may be physically inaccessible, endangered, or ignored.

As society becomes increasingly aware of the importance of indoor environmental quality (IEQ), the need for more comprehensive assessments of IEQ is growing. With the advent of new types of offices, such as dynamic office platforms, there is a pressing need to assess the impact of IEQ on human physiology. More studies need to be used to assess indoor air quality (IEQ). This study aims to investigate whether differences in human physiological responses are caused by variations in IEQ in different areas of the same office. Data collection was conducted at an innovative engineering firm in Southern California that already started adopting a dynamic work platform. This research collected brain signals from employees working in different areas of the office and analyzed the relationship between their EEG signals and various indoor environmental parameters, as well as their responses to questionnaires about their perceptions of the indoor environment. The results showed the influence of EEG signals and the indoor environment that can be visualized. The results of the analysis could be used to develop a prediction model that can be used to visualize the influence of EEG signals on indoor environmental quality. This model will be applied to predict future indoor environmental parameters based on existing EEG data, allowing people to effectively improve the indoor environment in the future. The study found that EEG signals can be used to determine indoor temperature, but further research is needed to investigate the relationship between other physiological responses and indoor environmental parameters. This will lead to the development of a more comprehensive model for predicting and improving indoor environmental quality.

Achieving thermal comfort using dynamic insulation and photovoltaics in extreme climates

Achieving thermal comfort using dynamic insulation and photovoltaics in extreme climates

Carbon Accounting Tool (CAT), a new software program, was created with .Net Framework using Visual Studio (VS). A class library was created in VS and associated with Revit API.dll to implement the interface between VS and Revit.
The plug-in can read the element materials of the building model and calculate the total amount of embodied carbon for each material in the current volume according to the predefined carbon spreadsheet or customized for a Revit 3D model.
Then the user can freely select the tree types in different climate zones according to the building location or select the tree mass, and make the current building carbon neutral according to the predefined annual CO2 absorption of each tree or unit tree mass.
Finally, the user can find out how many carbon credits to purchase and the price in the last step of the carbon trading interface in plug-in if there is any remaining carbon that cannot be neutralized in the front step.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two ways to make the direct perception of data through images of virtual data. People can collect data on temperature, humidity, and particle concentration at different locations in a building and then visually represent the data in three visual formats at different times by swiping to change the date and moment of the data. It is possible to monitor the indoor environmental conditions of an office during a period to test the comfort level of this room for humans. Both VR and AR could be beneficial as two techniques for people to have a better understanding of the indoor environment quality and provides a tool for people to choose the most suitable location for themselves within the office.

A tiny house for seasonal rangers was designed for the extreme climate and diurnal temperature fluctuations of Joshua Tree National Park. The challenging climate conditions resulted in an extensive investigation of the building envelope to act as a passive thermal storage system to naturally cool and heat the house. The north wall was designed as a “cold battery,” which uses a dynamic internal and external insulation system with a high-mass concrete wall to achieve coolth absorption at night as part of a thermal management system and to achieve indoor thermal comfort under extreme desert climates. A combination of opening an exterior insulation system at night to absorb coolth, closing the exterior insulation system when the temperature rises, and opening the interior insulation system to release coolth was attempted. The goal was to achieve a comfortable indoor temperature without the use of HVAC systems. Other student researchers were concurrently looking at other parts of the building. Several software programs were tested for their capabilities to simulate time lag in concrete and thermal storage including Opaque and IES VE. The design of the north wall was carried out for different conditions such as different modulating profiles, locations and thicknesses of insulation, and the data were collected and analyzed again. IES VE was able to successfully simulate the effects of moving interior and exterior insulation twice a day on different sides of a concrete wall. Additional simulations were carried out on the entire residence to study thermal comfort conditions, minimally for the months of the year rangers were present; natural ventilation proved to be a good strategy.

The severe housing shortage for the seasonal rangers at Joshua Tree National Park can be resolved by providing housing that is modular and has a rapid production process. This housing can be made more sustainable by designing units that are fully self-supporting by creating a high-performance building enclosure that can regulate the thermal performance of the residence, and the south-facing wall – the face that receives maximum solar gain – can be used to achieve internal thermal Precast concrete is a good candidate material considering its high thermal mass and exceptional speed of construction. The simulation iterations include varying concrete thickness and exploring various insulating materials, their locations, and thickness. A dynamic external and internal insulating layer is proposed as a thermal battery strategy on the south wall, where the concrete wall is pumped up with heat; the exterior and interior insulations are regulated according to the outside temperatures and the concrete wall slowly dumps the heat to achieve thermal comfort inside. These iterations and simulations are tested and run on Honeybee Energy and IESVE.
The iterations on the south-facing wall show a thickness of 8 inches to be ideal with respect to thermal calculations and weight restrictions – with a dynamic thermal insulating layer, seasonally controlled to switch on and off according to the outdoor temperature. The indoor thermal comfort increases only by 29% if a dynamic insulating layer is added to the south wall, north wall, and the roof. Whereas the indoor thermal comfort increases by 40% if the dynamic insulating layer is added only to the south wall. This dynamic thermal insulation system with an 8” thick concrete wall can reduce the average indoor temperature and help increase the energy savings by 45% in Joshua Tree National Park for the designed small residence.

Hot Desking workplace arrangements are becoming popular post COVID-19 where employees follow a hybrid work culture to reduce the spread of infection. Therefore, the objective of this research is to identify the factors that contribute to the environmental satisfaction and work productivity of the occupants while reviewing the IEQ performance of the selected office. This study investigates any significant environmental and physiological components that affect the users’ overall IEQ satisfaction and work productivity in the hot desking system, as compared to the conventional workplace environment. To achieve this, this study adopted the Post Occupancy Evaluation methods, including survey to understand employee work comfort environment in a hot desk arrangement, and also investigated IEQ factor(s) influencing work productivity to mitigate the IEQ issues faced by the occupants in the hot-desking workplace and the survey revealed that occupants reported significantly lower environmental satisfactions in the hot desking condition, compared to the conventional workplace environment. The finding of this research can inform the design and operation of such a novel workplace environment to improve the occupants’ wellbeing and work productivity.