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Now showing 1 - 10 of 81
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Developing a simulation-based framework for healing building envelopes in healthcare design

2022-12-15 , Naik, Tanmay Anil

In healthcare facilities, with the very nature of healing at its core, designing spaces with enhanced levels of human comfort is of prime importance. Daylighting in healthcare facilities has benefited the physiological and psychological well-being of patients receiving treatment. However, many decades of scientific and technological innovation in the field of electrical lighting have resulted in providing ambient daylighting losing its priority in the overall design process. This paper evaluates the impact of building envelope design on daylighting within a patient room setting using parameters such as window-to-wall ratio, and shading mechanisms. The performance is assessed through metrics such as spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA) and Annual sunlight exposure (ASE). By using optimization tools such as Colibri and visualization tools like Design Explorer, a wide range of building envelope options are evaluated for different orientations of patient rooms. An integral part of this research is assessing the impact of daylighting in varying climatic conditions on the melanopic lux levels regulating the circadian rhythms of the patients by using the circadian lighting software ALFA. The results derived from this simulation-based framework would aid in creating a workflow to design patient rooms in healthcare settings by focusing on daylighting.

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Towards Understanding an Imperfect Built Environment: A Methodology for In-Situ Characterization of Building Envelope Thermal Performance

2022-04-01 , Pilet, Tyler J.

As buildings age, retrofits are becoming an increasingly important topic for the ever-growing and aging existing building stock. Following construction, a building's energy footprint typically remains relatively stagnant, effectively locking-in that building's energy usage for its lifetime. With 50% of America’s building stock built before 1980 and only 0.5–1% of existing buildings retrofitted annually, it is essential to reduce guesswork and make building energy retrofits more accessible to reduce the energy footprint of the building sector. Building retrofits are plagued by a lack of original design documentation and general uncertainty regarding the building's envelope composition and integrity. The goal is this work is to utilize the power of transient heat transfer modeling to non-intrusively characterize the thermal properties of a building's envelope to inform energy modeling, facade design, and project appraisal. This thesis presents a literature survey of the state-of-the-art in in-situ thermal testing, a thermal characterization methodology to non-destructively identify representative thermal properties for existing building envelopes, a simulation-based study to verify the thermal characterization method, two physical experiments to validate the thermal characterization method, and a proof-of-concept machine learning approach to classify in-service assemblies via the proposed thermal characterization methodology. This dissertation is designed to bridge the gap between the discrete procedures of building audits and building energy modeling processes to enable a better understanding of existing building envelopes and reduce guesswork from envelope retrofits.

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PHPP2E+: Employing dynamic building simulation while pursuing passive house certification

2021-12-15 , Leite Goncalves, Vitor

The building sector alone accounts for around 40% of the global GHG emissions, and aiming to decrease this percentage, various organizations are trying to address the energy load of buildings. European Passive Houses are characterized mainly by construction concepts that can greatly reduce the overall energy usage. During the Passive House certification process, modelers must utilize the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), a steady-state monthly energy balance tool provided by the Passivhaus Institut (PHI) to verify the performance of the building according to the certification criteria, but nowadays due to climate change and the improvement of hourly dynamic simulations, more detailed analysis of the thermal processes within and around the building are also desired by many practitioners to better understand the indoor environment during the design process. The aim of this thesis is to 1) create a framework to facilitate the conversion of inputs of the PHPP into EnergyPlus, allowing for an easy and quick method of utilizing hourly dynamic building simulations and performing a more detailed analysis while pursuing Passive House certification; 2) investigate the difference in the results reported by the PHPP and by commonly utilized dynamic simulations tools, such as EnergyPlus, and 3) examine how different airflow modeling approaches in dynamic building simulation, such as the standalone BEM, Airflow Network Model (AFN), or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can affect the results of the simulation results in terms of overheating in Passive Houses. All dynamic simulations will be evaluated using Honeybee as a front-end interface for EnergyPlus, while relying on Rhino3D’s Grasshopper integration to facilitate the input translation between the PHPP and EnergyPlus.

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Computers, Craft, and Culture: Creative and Critical Inquiry into Computation Design

2021-09-29 , Noel, Vernelle A. A.

Craft and cultural design practices are vehicles for people’s histories and knowledges, and are dependent on their social, cultural, and political contexts. On the other hand, software practices are often framed as neutral, independent - devoid of social, cultural, and political entanglements. Drawing from methods, concepts, and modes of inquiry in computing, craft, media studies, and science and technology studies, this lecture demonstrate (1) how software-based practices can reshape cultural and craft-based practices, ideas, and labors; and (2) how new investigations into craft can repair and reveal hidden entanglements in computational design.

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Urban Design Studio: Faith Based Affordable Housing

2022-12 , Delargy, Colin , Cena, Kortney , McFarlane, Clifton , Dominguez, Miriam , Waheed, Jullanar , Murphy, Ansley

Well known by now, and getting worse by the moment, is Atlanta’s affordable housing crisis. In the Atlanta case, as in “hot” markets all over the country, jurisdictions are trying to come up with strategies that might work. One such tried here and in other cities is to eliminate single family zoning. Early evidence in its usefulness for addressing affordability from Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland, however, shows that strategy to be failing. It’s not producing density, the investment required is raising property values and taxes, the red hot “build to rent” markets are displacing neighborhoods, particularly Bipoc and low wealth neighborhoods. And its top-down approach is stripping communities of any input into the process. In short, this solutionist strategy does not work. In Atlanta, the city council decisively defeated it in December. item_description: Well known by now, and getting worse by the moment, is Atlanta’s affordable housing crisis. In the Atlanta case, as in “hot” markets all over the country, jurisdictions are trying to come up with strategies that might work. One such tried here and in other cities is to eliminate single family zoning. Early evidence in its usefulness for addressing affordability from Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland, however, shows that strategy to be failing. It’s not producing density, the investment required is raising property values and taxes, the red hot “build to rent” markets are displacing neighborhoods, particularly Bipoc and low wealth neighborhoods. And its top-down approach is stripping communities of any input into the process. In short, this solutionist strategy does not work. In Atlanta, the city council decisively defeated it in December. Since we and others remain in a state of crisis, though, the context for this studio investigates strategies for what to do instead. These include coming up with the tools and resources to coordinate use of publicly and non-profit owned land; to maximize conservation of existing stock; and to concentrate densification in already dense areas like transit corridors and existing dense areas. For us, we will explore the potential for faith-based property owners to step up, using their land holdings as a way of underwriting the land cost element of an affordability-serving pro forma. This studio explores the issues and ideas from an overview perspective. The studio worked with four faith-based organizations to go deep, developing case studies to further tease out the issues and opportunities. This work was guided by these organizations, possible by nearby affected communities as well. The work product includes both our overview and the findings from the individual case studies. Students worked in group settings, applying their knowledge across the specializations of housing and community development, economic development, and urban design, along with associated regulatory and resource requirements. The studio progressed from data assembly to analysis, to consideration of alternatives, to suggested courses of action, to a final report and presentation. Stakeholder organizations will review each stage of the work. Students utilized their skills in data management, analysis, communication, and presentation in a cross-disciplinary and community engaged process.

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Urban Thermal Diagnostics and Extreme Heat Vulnerability in Underrepresented Communities

2022-01-27 , Alfalih, Hala

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the globally averaged surface temperatures of the Earth have increased by 0.6 ± 0.2°C in the 20th century and models have projected that by 2100 (relative to 1990), the globally averaged surface air temperature to warm 1.4 to 5.8°C. Urban environments elevate rising temperatures in cities through urban heat island effect. With global urbanization increasing, this becomes a critical aspect of climate change for research to focus on. These increasing temperatures mean we are experiencing longer and more intense summers that are leading to extreme heat events called heat waves. These extreme heat events are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, and have been correlated with biophysical hazards such as heat stress, air pollution, and associated public health. These impacts are expected to be more intense within vulnerable populations such as the chronically ill, elderly, and young children. This makes it crucial to focus urban and building design strategies on the populations most at risk. This thesis identifies vulnerable communities as being more at risk to the effects of extreme heat. The method of investigation is under three main titles. These are, sequentially, data, analytics, evaluation, and strategies. The first section of the thesis focuses on collecting data that will support the definition of heat vulnerability as a combination of adaptive capacity, exposure, and sensitivity. The second segment analyzes and evaluates data which was previously collected, by simulating thermal comfort and temperatures during the current climate and future climate, qualitative methods which investigate the collected demographic and social data, and finally interpretation of all the remaining data. Finally, the research will investigate possible mitigation strategies in both the long term and short term. While the research will be applied to the specific Grove Park neighborhood, this gives us an opportunity to realize how important it is to begin identifying more communities which are at risk and applying similar strategies.

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An Application for Urban Analytics

2021-12 , Steinichen, Charlotte Jane

The objective of this research was to develop a new, data-based methodology for analyzing urban environments. By combining graph-based street network data with socioeconomic data scraped from open sources such as Google Places and Foursquare, the application designed for this study provides a quantitative understanding of the urban landscape surrounding stadium projects. The application has been shown to be flexible and can be applied to urban environments across the globe. As a result, this study is a promising first step towards a comprehensive, data-based urban model that can be used to assist place-making professionals both in understanding existing urban development and in siting new projects.

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Urban Design Studio: Home Park Neighborhood Strategic Planning

2022-12 , Master, Michaela , Yohanis, Samrawit , Hudson, Joel , Noe, John , Lieu, Seung Jae , Neaves, Thomas , Yuxiang, Zhao , Rollins, Miles

Nestled between Georgia Tech and Atlantic Station (and between the Connector and Northside Drive), Home Park neighborhood leadership has provided planning frameworks through the years, ultimately approved and incorporated into the City of Atlanta’s own plans, that aim at maintaining neighborhood integrity and quality of life for its residents amidst change forces all around. This update will respond to these challenges by exploring their impact on neighborhood futures and also provide recommended short-term actions that signal reassertion or reimagining of neighborhood values. As such, students will be called upon to work in group settings, applying their knowledge across all specializations, emphasizing syntheses among them. The neighborhood will provide forums for reviewing and providing feedback to our progress and shaping these interests. Their organization is committed to carry out a long-term, inclusive, transparent, and community-engaged program. item_description: Nestled between Georgia Tech and Atlantic Station (and between the Connector and Northside Drive), Home Park neighborhood leadership has provided planning frameworks through the years, ultimately approved and incorporated into the City of Atlanta’s own plans, that aim at maintaining neighborhood integrity and quality of life for its residents amidst change forces all around. This update will respond to these challenges by exploring their impact on neighborhood futures and also provide recommended short-term actions that signal reassertion or reimagining of neighborhood values. As such, students will be called upon to work in group settings, applying their knowledge across all specializations, emphasizing syntheses among them. The neighborhood will provide forums for reviewing and providing feedback to our progress and shaping these interests. Their organization is committed to carry out a long-term, inclusive, transparent, and community-engaged program. Examples of the neighborhood’s range of interests include; o Reviewing useful proposals from earlier planning work o Tackling housing-related issues like conservation, affordable housing options, and impacts of short-term rentals o Framing development options along corridors (10th Street, 14th Street, Hemphill, and Northside Drive), including traffic control options o Exploring urban design initiatives for strengthening neighborhood identity, ped/bike-oriented streetscape, and connectivity and SPI-8 parking priorities o Analyzing, as an empirical matter, how closely the City follows neighborhood master plans, with an eye towards strengthening the influence of those plans The studio work includes data assembly and analysis, the consideration of alternatives, suggested courses of action, and a final report and presentation. Community stakeholders were intimately involved in each stage of the work. As a framework planning/urban design exercise, the studio covered issues and opportunities across the full spectrum of planning specializations including: data collection, recordation, analysis, visualization and presentation in a cross-disciplinary and community involved processes, transportation planning, land use planning, open space planning, urban design and zoning.

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High Performance (Sub)urbanism

2022 , Dunham-Jones, Ellen , Rakha, Tarek , Jassu, Joel , Adhikari, Priyanka , Alshahrani, Tariq , Vigario Coelho, Karina , Datla, Sahithi , Harrell, Olivia , Jain, Pulkit , Jayasimharao, Ranjitha , Kesh, Devaki , Khodagholi, Shima , Menon, Athulya Usha , Mody, Aayushi , Mohgaonkar, Aishwarya , Naik, Tanmay , Ongole, Harshini , Poddar, Dishaddra , Ravindran, Ajay Manjunath , Son, Hyowon , Subramanian, Karunya , Vanmali, Aishwarya

This studio report documents the redevelopment proposals of six teams of MS urban design and MS high performance building students to advance DeKalb County's 2020 Memorial Drive Revitalization Plan. The report is intended to help community members envision change and discuss ways to improve the economic, social, and environmental performance of this corridor between I-285 and Stone Mountain.

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Dreamers of the Day: Designing Possibilities

2021-11-10 , Deutsch, Randall S.