exhibit 2007 Research Yearbook

2nd edition for WEB publication, Nov 2007

exhibit! 07 Research Yearbook School of the Built Environment University of Nottingham ISBN: 978 0 85358 238 0 Design, Layout and Edited by Guillermo Guzman Dumont Editorial Board: Professor Brian Ford, Jonathan Hale, Robin Wilson, Guillermo Guzman Dumont Published by the School of the Built Environment, University of Nottingham Printed in England by Pyramid Press Ltd. 2nd Edition for WEB publication, November 2007 Copyright 2007 Š School of the Built Environment, University of Nottingham. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The views expressed in the included articles are those of their authors and may not reflect the views of the publisher, as well as the responsibility for copyrighted content supplied for those articles and the research students’ entries.

School of the Built Environment University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG72RD UK Tel: 44 (0)1159514184 Fax: 44 (0)115 9513159 www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe Cover graphic: exhibit! 07-logo design by gguzman

exhibit! 07

Research Year Book

Table of Contents 003

Introduction from Head of School

004

Research at the School of the Built Environment

006

Optimising Daylight by Special professor Peter Clegg

010

Research and Practice by Special Professor Alistair Guthrie

012

Building Services Group

014

Sustainable Technologies Group

016

Environmental Design and Tectonics Group

020

Urban Design Group

022

Architectural Humanities Group

024

RESEARCHERS

060

Working with industry

061

Research Students, Studentships and integration of research and teaching

062

RESEARCH STUDENTS

108

School research facilities

110

Creative Energy Homes

112

International links

114

Special professors at the SBE

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Introduction

The purpose of this yearbook is to record a ‘snapshot’ of research activity within the School, so that our partners in academia, industry and the built environment professions can see the breadth of research activity in the School. It also provides a reference for staff and students, to improve communication and encourage cross-fertilisation of ideas.

It covers the subjects of enquiry and the individuals involved, and so provides a quick reference to the research expertise within the School.

Much research within Built Environment is applied. Collaboration with industry & professional practice is extremely important to ensure relevance and take up of new ideas. The building of five test houses “creative energy homes” on the campus, sponsored by industry and involving local design professionals, is a prime example of this. Another example is our proposed Creative Construction Centre which will provide a platform for component research and development.

The School has an international reputation for research in many areas, including sustainable energy technology, environmental design, materials and component development, as well as urban design and architectural humanities. The significance of the work is evident from the esteem with which many members of staff are held, and the numerous collaborative projects with leading players in these fields both nationally and internationally.

Dissemination of the results of research projects, through seminars, conferences and exhibitions, is vital and the School holds numerous events each year and also encourages staff and research students to participate in these events nationally and internationally. Communication to a wider audience is made through TV radio and the popular press.

The School is outward looking, and is engaged in the University’s cam-

puses in China and Malaysia. The new building for the Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies at Ningbo will provide a base for research collaboration with Chinese institutions and industry. Members of staff collaborate in a number of international networks of leading researchers. Funding for research within the School comes from a wide range of sources including UK Research Council and the European Commission.

The value of design to research is becoming more widely recognised.

Research is commonly regarded as reductive and analytic, but innovation occurs through synthesis, which is the essence of the design process.

As this Yearbook shows, the School encourages both individual inquiry and cross-disciplinary collaboration, which recognizes the value of both analysis and synthesis in generating and testing new ideas in the field of the built environment.

Professor Brian Ford, September 07

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Research at the School of the Built Environment The School of the Built Environment includes 36 research active staff spread across four Institutes: Architecture; Building Technology; Sustainable Energy Technology; and Urban Planning. The School also enjoys the support of 17 Industrial and Practice Professors – two of whom, Professors Peter Clegg and Alistair Guthrie, have contributed articles to this book.

Research in the School covers five key subject areas: Building Services; Sustainable Technologies; Environmental Design and Tectonics; Urban Design; and Architectural Humanities. This structure reflects the breadth of specialist interests to be expected within a large community of architecture and built environment researchers. Interdisciplinary collaboration is also a strength of the School’s approach, and many staff contribute to work in more than one research area. Staff are also involved in a number of interdisciplinary research groupings with other Schools around the University, including: Energy Technologies Research Institute (led by the School of Chemical, Environmental and Mining Engineering) comprises a multidisciplinary team of more than 100 engineers and physical and social scientists working on projects totalling more than £8 million. It is supported by industrial partners in the energy sector, including e.ON and Rolls Royce,

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collaborating on projects funded by the UK research councils, the DTI and the EU. Centre for the Environment provides a focus for developing interdisciplinary approaches to environmental research and teaching within the University. It brings together seven Schools and Institutes spanning the natural, physical and social sciences, including: China Policy Institute; Schools of Built Environment, Biology, Biosciences, Chemical, Environmental and Mining Engineering, Civil Engineering and Geography.

Centre for Research in Architectural Culture set up by the Architectural Humanities Group provides a platform for interdisciplinary research in the areas of visual, spatial and urban culture studies. It involves staff from: Critical Theory/Cultural Studies; History and Art History; Computer Sciences; Visual Culture and Film Studies. It has recently attracted funding from the University’s Humanities Research Centre in two areas: The ‘Images Project’ on the impact of new visualisation technologies; and the ‘Pervasive Media Group’ focussed on ubiquitous computing.

Integration of research and teaching is achieved throughout the School and is particularly evident in the current portfolio of successful taught masters courses, including: MSc in Renewable Energy and Architecture;

MSc Energy Conversion and Management (also offered at the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ningbo campus); and the MSc in Sustainable Building Technology which is co-taught with one of five collaborating institutions in China. In addition to the general advanced level Master of Architecture in Design the School runs a number of other research-led taught postgraduate programmes that encourage progression to MPhil and PhD. Scholarship funding is available from both School and University sources.

Marmont Centre

Lenton Firs house P.V tiles in the Eco-House

Combined Solar collector & shading device

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Optimising Daylight Louis Kahn once said, with his normal degree of poetic licence: “without daylight architecture does not exist”. Our buildings can leap into life with 100,000 lux on a bright sunny day, and become subdued and restrained under a diffuse and overcast sky. Daylight penetrating the building enlivens it and makes the connection with the outdoor climate, the time of day and the season of the year. But we need to be able to apply controls and filters to achieve either visual excitement or visual comfort. Our buildings should allow us to manipulate daylight.

Chipping Norton Leisure Centre

Peter Clegg MA(Cantab) MEnvD RIBA Senior Partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley, Special Professor SBE, Nottingham

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Some years ago, working with Professor Brian Ford, we looked at the daylighting of the Sports Centre building in Chipping Norton. Each space within the building became an essay in the different use of daylighting, introducing in between wall and roof (1), bouncing it off the floors (2) and colouring the light emitted through circular rooflights in the reception area (3). The fabric covered rooflight “beams” (4) were designed

to optimise diffuse lighting in the Sports Hall. The beams run between the badminton courts to minimise the risk of glare. The simplest and most economic of buildings can become dramatic by using the power of daylight, often playing on the variation in intensity of light and dark, admitting a streak of sunlight here or there and creating dramatic internal reflective surfaces.

But many functional spaces, offices, schools and workplaces require a more even and glare free environment. So when it came to designing the new Headquarters for the National Trust, we researched the best way to get uniform daylight distribution over a deep plan floorplate, on a site where the surrounding buildings were two storey historic industrial railway sheds.

The National Trust Central Office (5) became an exercise in optimising the roof both for daylighting, ventilation and photovoltaic collection. It was Max Fordham suggested to us that the most economic form of solar collection was to offset the carbon emissions from artificial lighting by using rooflights. A square metre of rooflight admits about three times as much daylight as a square metre of The National Trust New Central Office

glazing in a wall, but generally also admits more solar gain. A “ridge and furrow” roof pattern with ridges running due east/west, allowed us to maximise the northlights, and shade them with photovoltaic cells that project above the ridge to cut out high level summer sun. so both sides of the roof in effect form energy collectors (6). Morning and evening sunlight is excluded by the ventilation “snouts” which project above the rooflight at regular intervals.

Geometrically this provides complex equations which were tested using a physical model in the artificial sky at University College at the Bartlett (7), and also using an Ecotech model that allowed us to both measure and illustrate the amount of daylighting on the interior of the building (8). Lighting contours showed us that the average daylight factors on the upper floors ranged from 5 to 15 and on the ground floors in the worst situation underneath the mez-

zanines down to below 2. Introducing two internal courtyards into the depth of the plan (9) improved this ground floor daylighting but also provided a private garden space for the building users.

With climate change now making its effects known, the problem we face with glazing buildings is becoming more acute, and it is often a question of keeping the sunlight out but letting daylight in. Our new academic complex for Leeds Metropolitan University, which will provide 10,000sqm of offices and teaching spaces for four departments (including Architecture), was conceived as a solid landscape form drawing on Yorkshire’s rich geological heritage. The mixed use scheme, which was granted planning permission in March 2007, also includes a new Baptist Church, a café/exhibition space and 240 student bedrooms / studios, organised in two buildings

of irregular massing and varying height, ranging from 3 storeys, adjacent to low rise listed buildings, up to a maximum of 23 storeys. A rainscreen cladding of Cor-ten steel was selected as a solid, sculptural and weathering material, interrupted by cascading glazing inspired from water flowing through a rock formation (10).

Early facade studies, using randomised, full-height glazing panels of varying width, explored using more glazing at the lower levels and progressively less transparency higher up because upper storeys typically have greater access to light and so need less glazing, whereas lower levels, with more overshadowing from nearby buildings, need more glazing to achieve an equally bright

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interior. For ease of construction and to reduce costs, the cladding was rationalised to a grid of 1.5m wide panels, and the facade design was developed through a process of iterative computer optimisation by modelling overshadowing and solar orientation on each building elevation. This computational modelling allowed us to test and quantify our design intuition and develop the design accordingly.

Light levels [were compared on the basis of ‘average daylight factor’.] in a naturally lit space fluctuate depending on how bright it is outside, so the light level is normally expressed as a percentage ratio between the internal ‘illuminance’ and the ‘illuminance’ available outside from an unobstructed sky. This is called the ‘daylight factor’ but is an attribute of a particular point in space only, so a more commonly used quantity is the ‘average daylight factor’, which is the average of daylight factors across the whole room taken horizontally and at desk level. Recommendations vary, but less that 2% is likely to require artificial lighting and 5% is generally perceived as very well lit. For the Leeds academic complex, a target of 3% was agreed in order to provide adequate natural light, avoid overheating and maintain the desired so-

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lidity of the building’s exterior.

An initial analysis of the amount of glazing needed on different floors and in different facades to achieve the 3% average daylight factor showed that there was more variation around the building than there was vertically. The vertical gradation in the percentage of glazing needed was only evident on areas of the façade in close proximity to other buildings. Since the team was keen to progress the façade design on this basis, detailed data on overshadowing was commissioned from the BRE, which gave us a ‘θ’ value (a measure of the area of sky a window can receive light from) for every 1.5m module on every floor of the building, from which it was possible to calculate the optimum percentage of glazing for that module. This data - in Excel spreadsheets - was colour coded and applied as a scaled façade to a 1:500 model (11).

Overheating and orientation were studied in a similar modelling exercise. For the Leeds area, Part L recommends limiting heat gains to 41 Watts / sqm floor area (counting only floor area within 6m of the facade). An assumption of 21 Watts /sqm for internal gains left a maximum of 20 watts/sqm for solar gain.

This detailed data was again converted into a coloured spreadsheet ‘façade’. Comparison of the two sets of data showed that substantial areas of the building would be sub-

Computer generated elevation in context

ject to overheating to achieve the desired daylight factor. The use of solar glazing - which transmits only about 40% of solar gain compared to 70% for typical double glazing meant that it was possible to keep the required glazing around most of the building.

All of the calculations and analysis for this modelling were performed using Excel spreadsheets. With in-house

computing expertise, this hard data was converted into a façade design using a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) program within Excel. It was decided that VBA was preferable to a stand alone application which would have required more extensive programming and might not ever be used on another project. The VBA program could also be easily imported into Microstation, our primary CAD package.

Spreadsheet showing the final glazing ratio as a composite of glazing required to achieve the 3 per cent average daylight factor

The algorithm itself is a set of recursive conditional statements, making weighted decisions based upon the numerical daylighting analysis and its design, at its current iteration.

User defined variables enable easy control of how the algorithm responds to changing design requirements. The façade was divided into groups of four 1.5m modules. Each group was averaged to determine the amount of glazing required and assigned a number of glazed panels accordingly, which were randomly placed by the program. The randomised placing was then refined for aesthetic reasons because the intention was that the corten – generally denser at the top of the building – would appear as if it were being weathered, thinning out as it came closer to the ground. The algorithm arranged the solid and glazed modules based on the surrounding panels, so that the probability of placing solid panels below or diagonally below other solid panels was increased.

This created links between the solid panels at the top of the façade and those further down, creating the appearance of the glazing ‘cascading’ down the façade (12). This was all executed with a single button within Excel, meaning that lots of options could be created very rapidly and a preferred one selected. Although it would have been possible to link the algorithm within Excel directly to Microstation to initiate the drawing, this was quick to achieve manually Development of the facade from spreadsheet to finished elevation

and time pressure meant that we opted for the safer route.

As a progression of these ideas, we have used the radiosity renderer Maxwell to simulate the amount of daylight illuminating the proposed facades on another project. Renderings were made throughout a 24 hour period during summer and winter solstices, effectively giving a year round analysis. A stand alone program was then built to analyse the brightness of these compiled renderings. These results replicated the daylighting analysis provided by the BRE for the Leeds Metropolitan University project, and indicate a way forward for undertaking this type of analysis in-house AND bypassing a lot of the sums.

Architects are in a pivotal position in relation to building design, - as indeed they are in relation to the battle to reverse climate change. We need all the research techniques we have at our disposal to be as effective as we need to be. Physical modelling, CAD modelling, Programmable Design Packages and Post-occupancy Evaluation all have a part to play in our research and design armoury.

We need to make sure we use the equipment effectively and creatively for the sake of our buildings, and the planet.

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Research and Practice Creating and designing the built environment and more particularly buildings, is a complex multilayered process. In the past buildings arose from the necessity of enclosure for safety or protection from the elements. They used materials to hand and evolved with the society by experience or the importing the ideas of others to form both practical and beautiful structures. Today we are free from the constraints of material availability, climate and reliance on past experience. We are free to create almost anything. How should we use this freedom to create better buildings in a world that has finite resources of energy, fresh water and materials?

Much of the building industry and building engineering in particular has become a linear process of using tried and tested solutions to repeatedly solve similar problems.

This is a good way of approaching the design and construction of a complex one-off project where the only prototype is what worked well on the last project. It reduces risk and gives better cost certainty, but it also reduces innovation and slows down the process of change. Many of our best projects have been those that have resisted, at least in part this drag on the industry and have used intuition followed by research and testing to push new ideas and approaches. This is essential if we are to tackle the enormous challenges involved in making our built environment sustainable.

We could categorise research in the context of engineering and designing the built environment in several ways.

Alistair Guthrie Environmental Engineer Director at Ove Arup and Partners Special Professor SBE, Nottingham

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Firstly, there is what we might term blue sky research. This is research that has no particular application, at least at the present time but is an idea that we might research because we have a hunch that it could lead to something. An example of this might be research into the properties of a new material or the way different senses interplay with each other in reacting to stimuli in the environment. The building industry needs this type of research from the aca-

Eden Project, Cornwall, UK Humid Tropic Biome (c) Graham Daunt

demic community because it is the foundation of new ideas. It is excellent when these ideas are shared. It is out of these discussions that new applications are born.

Secondly, there is research that gives qualitative and quantitative substance to new technologies or ideas that are applicable within the building industry. These might be the testing of materials in a particular application, the development of a more efficient solar collector or the testing of a ventilated faรงade.

Thirdly, there is research and testing that develops particular solutions often for particular projects. This might be to reduce risk from a new application by conducting tests or developing new software to predict outcomes of an untried solution.

This type of research is often immediate because the solutions and results will be applied to a project

that will be built. It focuses on real issues which have to be solved within a fixed timetable. From the perspective of practice this is often the most valuable research because it leads to immediate application and it is driven by real issues. From the point of view of the researcher, it is sometimes less satisfactory because a result is sought rather than options fully explored. Design by its very nature is often a compromise between competing issues.

The Eden Project in Cornwall is an example of a number of new ideas that needed research and testing to ensure that the design, when built, would perform as expected.

The idea, originally conceived and researched for the Kansai Airport project in Japan, was to use very large air jets at the perimeter of the space for heating and air movement, to use low level misters for humidity control and openings top and bottom to prevent overheating. The first piece of research was to establish with the academic horticultural

High Museum, Atlanta, USA Skylight condensation analysis

community, the conditions for growing tropical plants, the diurnal range, the seasonal changes and the tolerances. These were then compared with the annual hourly weather file for Cornwall and the response of the enclosure to determine an operating sequence that resulted in minimum energy use. In order to predict the humidity levels within the enclosure software was developed with the horticultural research community to model the evapotranspiration of the planting. The modelling established the design parameters and was subsequently used to test alternate strategies and to evaluate options.

The roof of the extension to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta Georgia consists of a large number of circular roof lights each protected from the direct sun with a cone shaped cowl.

The roof lights are doubled glazed but because of the cold winters in Atlanta and the need to maintain fixed humidity conditions in the art display galleries we were concerned about the risk of condensation on the inside of the glass. We considNational Swimming centre, China Aquatic centre for the Beijing 2008 Olympics

Tjibaou Cultural Centre, French New Caldonia Wind induction sails (c) John Gollings

ered the simple linear calculations were too coarse to accurately predict the risk and that they would lead to an unnecessarily expensive solution. Research showed that the formation of condensation is dynamic and non-uniform across the surface.

New software was used to model this and it was found that with the introduction of a better gasket at the edge, the simple solution would be sufficient.

Sustainable solutions require a thorough understanding and application of physics to ensure that the building envelope, materials and systems work together to create an energy efficient building that will still be operational or reusable in 30 or 50 years time. Research into every aspect of the built in environment is essential and will be ongoing as we discover new ways to meet these challenges. This will be most effective when the practicing community and the research community join together.

Tjibaou Cultural Centre, French New Caldonia Predicted wind velocities & temperatures inside a typical space during the hottst month of the year

California academy of Science, USA Prediction of natural ventilation rates

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Building Services Group The Building Services group is led by Saffa Riffat who is Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems. The group focuses its research on active environmental control systems with an emphasis on servicing buildings in an environmentally responsible, fashion. Activity ranges from advancing understanding of the fundamental principles that underpin the design of energy systems, through developing new and novel thermal cycles, to the construction and evaluation of systems. Strong links with industry are viewed as crucial to transferring the group’s expertise to the market place and a significant number of companies have recognised the commercial advantage of collaboration. The Baxi Group has been a key industrial collaborator who, in addition to supporting Saffa Riffat’s Chair, also engaged in a major programme of research designed to explore innovative applications for its product range.

The group’s activities are wide-ranging and recent work falls into five main areas: Chemical Heat Pumping The group has significant expertise in the area of novel chemical heat pump designs intended primarily as alternatives to vapour compression cycles for cooling buildings. Shenyi Wu has undertaken work exploring thermally driven absorption cycles and osmosis across membranes to re-

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generate liquid absorbents. Yuhong Su has also been active in this area focussing specifically on the benefits of using centrifugal force to enhance the process and Rabah Boukhanouf explored novel configurations of adsorber in solid heat pump systems.

Electrical Heat Pumping This activity complements the group’s work on chemical heat pumping. Saffa Riffat has researched the relationship between heating/ cooling demand in domestic scale buildings and the ability of different ground heat exchangers to satisfy this demand via a vapour compression system. This work has been extended by Guohui Gan who has explored the use of rainwater collection tanks as ground heat exchangers. The integration of thermoelectric heat pumps and heat pipes into the façade of buildings has been undertaken by Saffa Riffat and Siddig

Omer has explored the combination of thermoelectric devices and phase change thermal storage materials coupled using heat pipes.

Waste Heat Work on waste heat utilisation and minimisation has been undertaken

by Saffa Riffat and Xudong Zhao have explored the use of sorbents for flue heat recovery to enhance the efficiency of gas boilers. Mark Gillott has worked with Saffa to investigate heat generation in solid oxide fuel cells and identify strategies for utilising waste heat. Mark has also worked on a research council funded project to develop a heat recovery system that integrates impellers, heat exchangers and a heat pump as well as exploring the use of photocatalysis as a means of maintaining high air quality in ventilation systems with high recirculation rates.

Combined Heat and Power The groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work on CHP emphasises the efficient use of conventional systems and the development of novel waste heat driven cycles.

Rabah Boukhanouf has explored the integration of small-scale absorption refrigeration systems with gas engine CHP plant to extend operation periods into the summer season and hence enhance operating performance. Yuhong Su has worked with Saffa Riffat on electrogasdynamic generation systems integrated into an ejector refrigeration cycle that provides heating, cooling and power generation.

Applied Thermofluids and Modelling Yuying Yan undertakes fundamental research that underpins understanding in the areas of multiphase flow and heat exchange. Research council funding supported work on two phase bubbly flow and he has

won a major research council grant with collaborators from four other UK universities to explore boiling and condensation in microchannels.

Yuying also has expertise in biomimetics in relation to thermofluids and has secured support to explore non-smooth morphological surfaces in collaboration with internationally recognised experts in China via a prestigious Royal Society funded Project.

The Building Services Group participates actively in the Heat Powered Cycles network, of which it is a founder member, and through CHAPNET, an EU thematic network with a focus on cogeneration. It is an active participant in the UK Heat Exchanger Action Group (HEXAG), the UK Process Intensification Network (PIN) and the UK Biomimetics network for industrial sustainability.

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Sustainable Technologies Group The Sustainable Technologies research group formed in response to expertise present within the School and the growing importance placed on sustainability. The group is led

by Saffa Riffat and has seen significant growth supported by University funding to develop a new Institute within the School (ISET) and a major platform grant from the EPSRC in recognition of the strength in depth of research in this area. The capabilities of the group have been enhanced by a SRIF award that has seen the completion of a new 1500m2 research facility, the Sustainable Research Building. This provides accommodation in a state of the art building that may be used as a vehicle into which sustainable energy systems can be integrated and evaluated. Its activities overlap strongly with the work of the Building Services group and the Environmental Design group and following 5 themes give a flavour of its work.

Photovoltaics Experience gained in the design phase and subsequent evaluation of the PV systems at Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus has been developed through further work undertaken by Siddig Omer, Robin Wilson and Saffa Riffat who have been successful in securing government funding for research into building integrated photovoltaic installations on three sites.

Further support allowed Guohui Gan to explore the integration of PVs in

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naturally ventilated buildings focusing on the potential for heat removal to enhance electricity generation.

Solar Thermal Systems Recent work in this area has concentrated on new approaches to solar collection and the use to which this energy may be put. Rabah Boukhanouf and Xudong Zhao have explored the use of flat plate heat pipes as thermal collectors as well as the development of hybrid devices that integrate with conventional thermal plant. Saffa Riffat and Robin Wilson have explored the integration of thermal collectors into shading devices and work on solar driven refrigeration systems has been undertaken by Mark Gillott and Shenyi Wu Earth Construction Matthew Hall’s expertise extends the group’s research capability in the area of materials, specifically in the

area of environmentally responsible alternatives to cement and concrete.

Recognition of this expertise has come through the award of a major EPSRC grant exploring the in-service properties of stabilised compressed earth construction with industrial collaborators Earth Structures (Europe) Ltd. Biomass Bomass power generation is viewed as a key research area which is supported by Hao Liu, who has expertise on combustion. His work on the clean combustion of coal has informed research into the use of fluidised beds in biomass combustion He is also exploring the clean and effective use of biomass at the individual building scale in an urban context Exploratory work is also being undertaken into the generation of hydrogen from biomass for use in fuel cells as well as carbon abatement/sequestration techniques.

Sustainable Building Design Mark Gillott, Guillermo Guzman and Saffa Riffat have been extending work initiated by the completion of the Eco Energy dwelling at the School through further collaborative research with leading UK house building firms. The group’s expertise informed the David Wilson Homes’ Project LIFE House for the future project which involved collaboration with researchers from the University’s Business School in an extended case study of a family house included monitoring the environmental performance as well as occupant behaviour patterns. Building on this work, the allocation of a site for the development of 5 research facilities as part of the Creative Energy Homes project on the School grounds has, to date, yielded three industrially funded projects with leading UK house builders.

The group is a founding organiser of the Sustainable Energy Technology (SET) conference, which has been run annually since 2003 to provide an international forum for disseminating the latest research in the field. It also participates actively in a number of national and international networks including the RENET network, which encourages collaborative research and exchange of experience and technology between the EU and India and Faraday Partnership in the area of Integration of New and Renewable Technologies in Buildings (INREB).

Images of the Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham, UK

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Environmental Design & Tectonics Group Introduction The School has a long history of excellence in environmental design research that may be traced back to the work of Robert and Brenda Vale in the 1990s. Today’s activity shares their ethos of holistic design and recognises that it is very difficult to disentangle the environmental strategies adopted in buildings from building design and construction techniques. The work of the Environmental Design and Tectonics group focuses on the construction of buildings and on the way in which building material and form can moderate the impact of the external environment on the internal environment.The research group is also focused on the challenge of delivering physical quality in the built environment. Construction has become one of the most visible forms of making in the developed world however it is not well understood by many of the stakeholders in the

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process. Research is focussed on the need for thoughtful, well-considered, environmentally responsible and well-constructed architecture.

The group is led by Brian Ford, Professor of Bioclimatic Architecture, and Michael Stacey, Professor of Architecture. The group’s expertise covers a number of well defined areas: Natural Ventilation David Etheridge is an internationally recognised expert in the field of natural ventilation who has successfully attracted research council support to make significant contributions to understanding air flow in naturally ventilated buildings. He acted as PhD supervisor to one of the School’s new lecturers, Ed Cooper, on a project supported by Airflow Developments Ltd, developing a rapid method for evaluating the air tightness of buildings. He also collaborated with Brian Ford on the

Malta Stock exchange

writing of the CIBSE Applications Manual 10, ‘Natural Ventilation in Non-domestic Buildings’. Brian Ford’s activity in this field builds upon his experience as a practising architect and his participation as a research partner in EU supported research. He is currently working on the EU funded project ‘Passive-On’ with 5 European partners exploring affordable passively ventilated housing. Guohoi Gan has expertise in computational fluid dynamics and has applied this to understanding the ventilation of atrium spaces and to air flows in cavities.

Passive cooling This theme is closely related to natural ventilation and explores approaches for providing comfort cooling without recourse to refrigeration plant. Brian Ford is coordinating a major EU project on the deployment of Passive and Hybrid Downdraught Cooling with a team of 5 collabora-

of light into buildings.

Ballingdon Bridge, Suffolk, 2003

tors in Europe and 2 in Asia. Related work undertaken by Jie Zhu in partnership with George Wimpy Ltd on a DTI supported project has explored innovative approaches to ventilating and indirectly cooling dwellings using porous ceramic evaporators coupled with heat pipes. Night cooling strategies utilising phase change materials have been explored by David Etheridge with Carbon Trust support and this work overlaps strongly with thermal storage work undertaken in the School by the Building Services group.

Light Activity within this theme is broad ranging. Industrial collaboration with Monodraught Ltd has supported research into light pipes and light rods undertaken by Li Shao, the industrial lectureship of Yuehong Su and provided infrastructure for research and dissemination. Daylighting has been a focus of research for Swinal

Samant, resulting in refereed publications on the environmental performance of atria. Peter Rutherford, in addition to researching the acoustic behaviour of tensile membrane enclosed spaces has also supervised research exploring the nature of the visual environment created by transparent and translucent membrane materials. Benson Lau has been successful in securing a prestigious RIBA Research Trust Award to explore Le Corbusier’s use of light within the interiors of the La Tourette Monastery and the Chapel at Ronchamp.

Mohamed Gadi has produced important work on the design of buildings in hot climates, focussing on the environmental contribution of courtyard forms and their role in providing protection from solar radiation.

Sergio Altomonte has extended his work on sustainable architecture to focus on the impact of natural light on building occupants and on the design of devices to control the flow

Acoustics Peter Rutherford has expertise in the areas of 3D audio, spacialisation and real time auralisation. This has been applied to exploring the acoustic environment in buildings lost to history, speech intelligibility for nonnative English listeners and has also secured a research innovation fellowship to explore the application of the technique within the design of new buildings. His work complements Robin Wilson’s research into characterisation of the acoustic properties of materials, which serves as input for auralisation models, and more fundamental investigations into the radiation of sound into porous media.

Tectonics and Making Architecture The fact that architecture is inherently polyvalent and multi-disciplinary in character has been emphasised in the realisation of high quality contemporary architecture. A new building or infrastructure for the built environment is never authored by a single architect working alone.

This is reflected in the approach of the researchers within this group and its strong links to industry and practice. Steven Van Dessel notes that ‘Convergence of disciplines has emerged as the preferred model for scientific discovery, a trend catalyzing many new discoveries in such

areas as nano-technology and biotechnology.’ The group collaborates with the Canadian Design Research Network including the Department of Architecture at the University of Waterloo.

The emphasis is on the physical realisation of architecture as demonstrated by the symposium ‘Making Architecture and Pursuit of Quality’ which took place on, 27th April, 2007, organised in collaboration with the School’s Architectural Humanities group. It was sponsored

by Opun, part of Regeneration East Midlands, and the Council for Aluminium in Building. Speakers include Ken Shuttlleworth of Make, James Timberlake of KieranTimberlake from Philadeldhia and Stephanie Webs of Caruso St John. EDTG is developing further research into making, craft, culture and tectonics with others in SBE and in particular Stephen Platt and Bradley Starkey. A current challenge is how research can inform the quality of homes built in the East Midlands.

Materials, Systems and Technology The research being undertaken spans emergent materials including nanotechnology alongside new developments in established construction materials such as concrete - as

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well as the revival of earlier technologies such as rammed earth. Steven Van Dessel has an expertise is nanotechnology with specific research into Active Thermal Insulators [ATI] and Rigidified Inflatable Structures [RIS]. Michael Stacey is working on two research programmes for the Concrete Centre, the first on designing with concrete and the second an environment design guide for the sustainable use of concrete.

The latter is being undertaken with Sheffield Hallam University. Matthew Hall’s expertise is the testing of materials with a focus on the performative qualities of rammed earth.

For example EPSRC funded research into the environmental performance of stabilised rammed earth walls using a climatic simulation chamber.

Mauro Overend’s expertise is in the structural use of glass, working closely with industry and other façade engineers. His research involves assessment of the structural and environmental performance of both new and established materials and systems, combined with novel designs and construction techniques, The work often involves knowledge transfer from the groups research expertise, in a two-way process with industrial partners.

The group has depth of expertise in component design, fabrication, building systems and offsite manufacturing (or prefabrication). This includes product design within the

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field of architecture. Overend, Stacey and Van Dessel all work on facade design and technology alongside others in the EDT group. Current PhD’s include Mauricio Hernandez’s research into the thermal performance of double faces and starting in 2007 Aneel Kilaire is undertaking design-based research into the next generation of double facades for high-rise urban architecture. This is a three year EPSRC Case Study PhD studentship funded by Buro Happold and is jointly supervised by Stacey and Wood.

Research into materials is also set within a broader cultural context and Stacey’s work also addresses the question of why the construction industry tends to be a late adopter of new technologies. In 2006-7 he researched and curated the exhibition ‘Materials of Invention: 100 Years of Technological Change’ which was shown at the Building Centre, London and the University of Nottingham and will also be exhibited in China during 2008. This exhibition charts 75 years of technological development including currently emerging materials and systems that will inform the next 25 years of the construction of the built environment.

Digital Design & Digital Fabrication Research encompasses the digital design of architecture and digital

fabrication including form-finding in architecture, this is a particular expertise of Stacey and Van Dessel.

A current PhD Student, Chunxiao Lu, supervised by Mohamed Gadi, includes the study of geometric characteristics of deployable origami structures. Digital Design & Digital Fabrication has the potential to transform architects into direct fabricators, working directly with industry going straight from CAD file to factory. Offering the potential for the architect to be at the centre of the design process, acting as the master builder or new craftsman of the built environment. Stacey curated the International ‘Digital Fabricators’ Exhibition, which recorded the state of the art in digital fabrication via projects of architectural excellence. The exhibition included the work of Philip Beesley and his laser cut installation Orgone Reef that is illustrated here. SBE has new digital fabrication equipment including a laser cutter and colour 3D printer, with other facilities such as water jet cutting also available within the University.

Overall achievements The group secured support from the RIBA and INREB to organise ‘East Meets West’, a conference addressing the environmental issues raised by rapid economic growth in many Asian countries. The RIBA also joined EMDA and BASF in supporting ‘Towards Zero Carbon Sustain-

able Homesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; a two day event exploring strategies for achieving zero carbon housing in the EU. The group has also succeeded in engaging with European designers including Mario Cucinella, Ted Cullinan, Spencer de Grey, Max Fordham, Alistair Guthrie and Bill Taylor along with leading figures from China, including Xia Nan Kai from Tongji University, Yin Xin Zhu from TsingHua University, plus Ken Yeang from Malaysia to enrich its activities.

Ballingdon Bridge, Suffolk, 2003

19 <

Urban Design Group

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Urban Design has been a research and teaching strength of the School for the past two decades. Research in urban design is focussed on the study of urban regeneration, public space and housing; cultural tourism; and high-rise architecture. The group is led by Professor Tim Heath with Professor Taner Oc, Katharina Borsi, Dr Stephen Platt; Dr Patrizia Riganti, Swinal Samant and Antony Wood. ESRC Research Fellow Andrea Wheeler also contributes to the group, as do the PhD students Philip Oldfield, Yue Tang, Wang Qi, Robert Harland, Eirini Gerogianni, Yi-Wen Wang, Remah Gharib, Shuang Song, Guangzi Su and Nurul Syala.

publishing rights.

Heath and Oc with colleagues at UCL and the University of Glasgow have published the acclaimed book ‘Public Places – Urban Spaces: the dimensions of urban design’. Now in its fifth printing it has recently been published in Chinese by Baitong Publishing. The same authors are currently working on the second edition of ‘Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters’ to be published by Elsevier in 2007. This work brings together urban design, regeneration and housing by examining the revitalization of historic urban quarters in European and North American cities. The first edition published in the UK 1996 has also been published in China by the China Architectural and Building Press and the Taiwanese government have also acquired

Platt is also active in the area of housing and urban regeneration and has produced reports for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and CABE, His Cambridge Futures work on development options and transport had a major impact on planning in the region and his work on public opinion and participation resulted in a book chapter. Platt and Riganti are the co-principal investigators for the EU 6th Framework Programme project ‘Integrated E-Services for Advanced Access to Heritage in Cultural Tourist Destinations’ (ISAAC). Valued at Euro1.6m and involving 15 European partners it will be completed in 2009. The aim is to valorise the relationship between digital heritage and cultural tourism by developing a novel user-centric ICT environment

Oc and Heath have also previously secured over £200,000 of EPSRC funding for research into the adaptive re-use of redundant buildings and this has resulted in refereed papers in esteemed journals such as the Journal of Planning Education and Research and Cities. Oc has also been working on a study of the urban implications of an ageing population funded by the Centre d’Etude et de Recherche. Oc is also the founder and editor of the Journal of Urban Design which is established as the leading worldwide journal in this field.

for tourism e-services. Riganti is also a member of the EU Network of Excellence ‘Sustainable Development in a Diverse Society.’ This research has resulted in a book chapter and refereed articles, including co-authored work with Professor Nijkamp of the Free University Amsterdam.

Image from Platt’s research: A survey for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted at exhibitions in shopping centres, libraries and hospital waiting rooms in Maidenhead, Medway and Aylesbury.

Image from Samant’s Research: Eastern Edge of Lake Pichola in Udaipur

Samant’s research has focussed on ‘Waterfront Regeneration’ in the Indian Context. Her work aims to develop a critical appreciation of the meanings associated with water bodies and their manifestations in the built environment, and propose sustainable strategies that bring together urban design, architecture, culture, environment, and conservation. Samant secured funding from the INTACH UK Trust for a study of the land-water interface at Lake Pichola in Udaipur. This work as well as her work on Ujjain has resulted in refereed papers. Samant has also recently received funding from University of Nottingham for a collaborative project with the China Policy Institute to establish an interdisciplinary waterfront environment network.

Wood has worked on mixed-use high-rise buildings within UK urban regeneration. He is completing a PhD on the ‘sky-bridge’ and has published refereed articles on this

and other new paradigms in tall building design. He is currently on secondment at the IIT Chicago as Executive Director of Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. A University ‘New Lecturers Grant’ and an industry-funded PhD studentship have enabled him to establish the School’s Tall Buildings Teaching and Research Group. Borsi has joined the team from the Glasgow School of Art in September 2007 and she will further boost the research and teaching in urban design.

Research and teaching are carefully integrated as part of the group’s activity, evidenced by the specialist research-led design studios and seminars offered at Diploma and Masters level by Heath, Oc, Borsi, Samant and Wood which are core components of the Master of Architecture programmes in Urban Design, Architecture Design, Architectural Technology and Environmental Design.

Research project supervised by Wood: Tall Building Design inspired by the specifics of place scheme by Eva Young.

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Architectural Humanities Group Architectural Humanities has become a distinct area of research strength within the School since the last RAE in 2001. Research is focussed in the areas of architectural history and theory, philosophy of technology, architectural representation, museum studies and research by design. The group is coordinated by Jonathan Hale and includes Graham Farmer, Laura (Hourston) Hanks, Raymond Quek and Bradley Starkey. ESRC Early Careers postdoctoral research fellow Andrea Wheeler also contributes to the group, as do the PhD students Fidel Meraz Avila, Ehab Kamel, Francesco Proto, WooYong Yi and Yan Zhu. With a grant from the University’s Research Strategy Fund in 2004 the Architectural History and Theory Group (AHTG), as it was then called, created the Centre for Research in Architectural Culture (CRAC). The Centre provides a forum for developing interdisciplinary research activity across and beyond the University in the areas of visual, spatial and urban culture studies and involves staff from: Critical Theory/Cultural Studies; History and Art History; Computer Sciences; Visual Culture and Film Studies. It has since been involved in attracting funding from the University’s Humanities Research Centre in three key areas: The ‘Images Project’ exploring the impact of new visualisation technologies across the arts and sciences; the ‘Pervasive Media

> 22

Group’ focusing on the emergence of ubiquitous computing and its implications for the humanities; ‘Museums: meaning and mediation,’ a new network intended to link with researchers in Art History and the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. The group is also currently developing a further regional forum on architectural philosophy with the University of Lincoln which will involve a shared series of research seminars and other networking activities.

The Architectural Humanities Group has played host to a number of international events and academic visitors, including British Academy Visiting Professor Kim Dovey from the University of Melbourne in 2004,and in 2005-06 Leverhulme Visiting Professor Marco Frascari, Director of the School of Architecture at Carleton University, Ottawa. In 2005 Professor Frascari acted as the

Chair and co-organiser of the 2-day international conference held at the School on behalf of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA). The AHRA is coordinated

by Hale and has a website hosted by the School (www.ahra-architecture. org.uk). It began in 2003 as a national subject association and now has a membership approaching 300 worldwide.

Details of specific research outputs are contained in the individual staff pages of this book - the following is a brief summary of the recent achievements of group members: Hanks has published a major monograph in the Wiley-Academy ‘Builders’ series: Museum Builders II, (2004) which contains a detailed survey of contemporary museum architecture. She has also produced refereed articles, given invited lectures and supervised PhD students working on museums, politics and national identity. Hale

Sound Museum, James Alexander, 2006

has collaborated with the School of Computer Sciences on an interactive digital exhibition guide, resulting in a refereed conference paper (2006) and Arts Council funding for a new project led by Vienna based artist and choreographer Cie. Willi Dorner.

Hale’s research is mainly focused in the area of philosophy of technology and materiality, and has resulted in a major monograph on Edward Cullinan Architects (Black Dog Publishing 2005). He has also produced refereed articles plus the book Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory, co-edited with William W. Braham of the University of Pennsylvania. An earlier book Building Ideas: An Introduction to Architectural Theory (Wiley, 2000) is currently being translated into Chinese, to be published in 2008 by the China Architecture and Building Press. Hale is also the book series editor of ‘AHRA Critiques: Critical Studies in Architectural Humanities’ published by Routledge and is coeditor with Starkey of Volume 2 in the series. This book, entitled From Models to Drawings, emerged from the 2nd AHRA Annual International Conference held at Nottingham in 2005. Starkey is working in the area of research by design, focusing on the conceptual role of architectural models in both the creative and critical process. His design work has recently been exhibited in London and he has published a number of refereed articles. Also working on

architectural representation, within a more historical framework, Quek’s research has resulted in a series of articles and conference papers. His work has focused on historical notions of architectural knowledge and the movement of ideas across cultures, as well as on the role of drawing and disegno in the process of design creativity. In 2004 he organised a symposium at the School on the work of the Victorian architect Sir John Soane and is currently developing a virtual research and teaching environment with collaborators in the USA and New Zealand. Farmer is also working in the area of philosophy of technology, focussing on the broader cultural context of debates around environmental design and sustainability. This has resulted in a number of refereed papers in international journals as well as a forthcoming monograph to be published

by Routledge. The book will be titled Sustainable Architecture: Theories, Policies, Practices, and is co-written with Professor Simon Guy from the University of Manchester.

Integration of research and teaching is a key element of the group’s activity, evidenced by the specialist research-led design studios and seminars offered at Diploma and Masters level by Hale, Hanks and Quek. Hanks is also Course Director for the 1-year Master of Architecture (Theory and Design), and Hale coordinates both the general

AHRA Website

MArch (Design) and the innovative interdisciplinary MA in Architecture and Critical Theory, which is run jointly with the Department of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies. Several students have made a successful transition from taught postgraduate to higher level research degrees MPhil and PhD, where exciting opportunities exist to pursue a broad range of humanities based topics.

23 <

Researchers

Key to colour-coding of research groups

Building Services Sustainable Technologies Environmental Design and Tectonics Urban Design Architectural Humanities

> 24

Pittsburgh Convention Center – R.Vinoly

Malta Stock Exchange – A.P.

PDEC Generic Application

Brian Ford is an architect who has specialised in the field of environmental design. His research interests cover a wide range of environmental design issues, from urban micro-climate issues to the development of new building components (including two patents). Since 2001 he has initiated and coordinated two European funded research projects on the application of evaporative cooling to buildings in southern Europe. EVAPCOOL (completed in 2003) explored the application of porous ceramic evaporators in perimeter shafts to provide cooling. Ford & Schiano-Phan coordinated the Altener ‘Solar Heating & Cooling’ cluster of projects which involved a total of 16 partners throughout Europe (completed in 2003). He has also participated in the IEE ‘Passive-On’ project on the application of ‘Passivhaus’ standards to housing in warm climates (completed September 2007). He and Schiano-Phan have just started (July 2007) a research and dissemination project funded under the EC IEE programme into Passive &

Hybrid Downdraught Cooling (PHDC).

This project involves 8 partners from Europe, China and India and will be completed in January 2010 (Total Project value 835,000 Euro). Downdraught cooling relies on ‘negative buoyancy’ to drive airflow within a space or building, thus avoiding the need for fans which can account for 30-40% of the electrical energy demand of an office building.

The geometrical relationship between air inlets and outlets determines the pattern of air movement and the distribution of ‘coolth’ within the space.

Thermal performance and user response to PHDC is the subject of ongoing research, both by Ford and others. As a consultant in the design of naturally ventilated and passively cooled buildings worldwide including: Sydney Olympic Stadium, Australia; Pittsburgh Convention Center, USA; Torrent Research Laboratories, India; and Malta Stock Exchange, Ford’s experience led to his appointment (with colleague David Etheridge and Steve Irving from Faber

Maunsell) as one of the principal authors of the CIBSE Applications Manual on ‘Natural Ventilation in Non-Domestic Buildings’ (AM10) published in 2005.

He was author of Chapter 3 ‘Ventilation Components and System Integration’, which was derived in part from an earlier DTI funded project. AM10 is widely regarded as the major reference document on the subject, for both architects and engineers. Ford’s involvement as a consultant for the natural ventilation and passive cooling of ‘Ridge Lytton Springs’ Winery in California, and the Malta Stock Exchange, constitutes ‘design as research’. Both are innovative projects in which novel approaches to ventilation and passive cooling were implemented and performance subsequently monitored. Ridge Winery received the ‘Best US Green Building’ award in 2004 and an AIA Design Award and Citation in 2006.

Malta Stock Exchange is the first building in Europe to incorporate Passive & Hybrid Downdraft Cooling (PHDC) and has been widely cited for its novel passive cooling approach.

Brian Ford

Background:

DipArch MA (RCA), RIBA Role:

Professor of Bioclimatic Architecture, Head of School Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

25 <

Background:

BA (Manchester), BArch, MA, PhD (Nottingham) Role:

Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Urban Design

> 26

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My experience as a qualified architect-planner has opened up unique research opportunities that encompass both professional disciplines. Research interests in urban design, city centre living; the adaptive re-use of buildings and 24-hour cities have been exploited through a number of publications and grants.

Together with colleague Professor Taner Oc and Matthew Carmona (UCL) and Steve Tiesdell (Glasgow) we have co-authored the book 'Public Places – Urban Spaces: the dimensions of urban design’. The book has sold around 7000 copies and has become a seminal text being widely cited within academic papers and recently published in Chinese by Baitong Publishing.

Another book which has recieved wide acclaim is ‘Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters’ which is also coauthored with Oc and Tiesdell. We are currently working on a second completely revised edition of the book which was first published in 1996 which will be published later in 2007. The book has also been translated and published in China

by China Architecture and Building Press in 2006 .

An expertise in city centre living has developed through EPSRC funded research projects and my PhD on the adaptive re-use of post-war office buildings for residential use.

An established reputation in this field offers the opportunity to combine research, teaching and consultancy in the area of residential development in city centres. This work examines both the demand and supply side of city living and focuses upon the empirical understanding of the development market. This expertise is encompassed within taught design studio modules within postgraduate programmes in the School.

This book is a holistic guide to the many complex and interacting dimensions of urban design by systematically exploring the ideas, theories, research and practice of urban design. The book identifies six key dimensions of theory and practice – social, visual, functional, temporal, morphological and perceptual - in providing a comprehensive discussion of this complex subject. In doing so the book identifies and acknowledges the global and local contexts and processes within which urban design operates.

The book synthesises urban design and urban regeneration by examining the revitalisation process and stewardship of unique historic urban quarters in European and North American Cities. Many cities have such quarters which are often an important legacy of an industrial past that are an integral part of a place's charm and appeal yet present many difficulties in terms of their adaptation to contemporary needs. Case studies provide lessons and observations for their role in the future of our cities.

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Tim Heath

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My current research interests are based around the impact of changes in society on City Living and the way cities are being reshaped in the 21st Century [Public Places, Urban Spaces; Architectural Press, Oxford, 2003] [Urban Design Ornament and Decoration, Butterworth Architecture, Oxford, 1995]. Over the past 30 years my research has always looked at cities and the way both policies and the built environment impact on disadvantaged groups - ethnic minorities, women and the aged. [Urban Regeneration and Ethnic Minority Groups; Policy Press, Bristol, 1997] [Safer City Centres; Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd, London, 1997] [Current Issues in Planning; Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1995].

My current research on Ageing in the Cities is a continuation of the EPSRC funded project on City Living which I undertook with Tim Heath, and a part of this research was funded by the French Ministry of Reconstruction. The research focuses on the impact of ageing in our cities and the challenges faced by the urban designers in reshaping the built environment to enable the increasing number of older people to live full, independent lives. One element of this research is informed by my earlier research on Safer City Centres for Women and other vulnerable people in the City. This research has resulted in a number of publications and

is going to be further disseminated with a monograph.

The other current research that I am engaged with is Revitalising Historic Urban Quarters. This research, which resulted in a well received book published in 1996 [Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters; Architectural Press, Oxford, 1996] which is now sold out, is updating the thinking on Revitalising Historic Urban Quarters and examining the case studies that were used in the previous study. We are looking at the impact of social and economic changes, as well as changes in policies and practice, in shaping the historic urban quarters over the past decade. This research is also informed by the EPSRC funded research into Buildings at Risk carried out with Tanya Spilsbury.

I am the founding editor of the Journal of Urban Design which is the leading scholarly journal in the field internationally.

Taner Oc Background:

BArch, MCP (METU), MA (Chicago), PhD (Pennsylvania) Role:

Professor of Urban Design

Institute:

Urban Planning Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Urban Design

27 <

Saffa Riffat Background:

BSc DipTech MSc DPhil DSc CEng FIMechE FCIBSE FinstE Role:

Professor of Sustainable Energy Technology Institute:

Building Technology Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies

> 28

LOW CARBON BUILDINGS Like it or not, the vast majority of buildings rely on energy to ensure the comfort of their occupants and to facilitate the activities taking place within. Given that most of us live and work in buildings, that buildings generally use energy in an inefficient manner and that most of this energy is derived from the combustion of fossil fuels, it is perhaps unsurprising that they should have been targeted by government in their attempts to tackle climate change. There is no single solution to the problem and the diverse range of strategies that can be drawn upon has formed the focus of my research. These range from the small scale, such as the design of efficient equipment for environmental control in buildings, the medium sale such as the selection of smart construction materials and their use in building design, through to the large scale such as the integration of renewable energy at an urban scale. While each of these approaches is important in its own right, the key to making effective reductions in carbon emissions lies in the appropriate selection of approaches. Together these represent a holistic response to the problems of resource scarcity and climate change whilst at the same time acknowledging the needs of the building user.

Some examples of the type of work this research spans are provided below. Â

Jubilee Campus

David Wilson Eco-House

ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE COOLING While keeping warm is at the forefront of most peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minds in the UK, comfort cooling is of great importance in many parts of the globe.

Research exploring strategies such as thermal mass and night cooling; evaporative cooling, solar driven absorption and adsorption refrigeration systems; as well ground coupling and ground source heat pumps offer low or no carbon solutions to the problem.

is required can be produced using microencapsulated phase change materials. The integration of reversible heat pipes into the envelope of buildings provide the opportunity to switch between highly conductive and effective insulating walls and roofs.

SMART ENVELOPES Building envelopes are often designed to resist the transmission of heat either into or out of the conditioned space. Approaches that seek to adjust resistance to heat flow in response to the prevailing weather conditions offer considerable scope to warm buildings up in winter and keep them cool in summer. Active envelopes that can absorb solar radiation and store it until the energy

RENEWABLES AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT The integration of renewable energy technologies into both the envelope and environmental systems within buildings is still at a relatively early stage of development. Work has been undertaken to explore the conventional integration of photovoltaics into the roofs and walls of buildings throwing light on some of the practical issues such strategies raise. More advanced strategies that combine a number of renewable energy technologies within a single system have also been investigated and show promise for enhancing performance.

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Michael Stacey Past research projects have ranged from The Intensive Use of Steel in Overcladding, for SCI, via The Application of Carbon Fibre to New Build Construction, for the DTI, to the Standardisation of Window and Cladding Interfaces, Cladd.ISS, undertaken with Loughborough University, Department of Civil Engineering. This formed detailed knowledge of materials and manufacturing processes, which is vital the delivery of contemporary architecture. This combination of research and practice was recorded in my book -Component Design.

Having first used three-dimensional computer modelling to facilitate the delivery of East Croydon Station in 1989, this has led on to research into the physical application of computing, including Mapping of Digital Fabricators in United Kingdom. A major output of this research was the curation of the international Digital Fabricators Exhibition.

Ballingdon Bridge is a project with an explicit research methodology, which explored the form of a new trunk road bridge in Suffolk. The digital geometry of this bridge was produced by an evolutionary process of tested design iterations.

Seeking a unique and site-specific geometry that fulfils the complex functional and cultural requirements of the brief. The success of Ballingdon Bridge has led to further research into the use of concrete (for the Concrete Centre). Outputs include a forthcoming book Concrete: A Studio Design Guide and a web based Environmental Design Guide for the Use of Concrete, the later in conjunction with Sheffield Hallam.

My research into materials and technology goes beyond the specific, considering the relationship between technology and humankind. Seeking to identify the true rate of technological change, particularly within the construction industry.

Background:

DipArch, RIBA

Role:

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The challenge of making architecture forms the basis of all the research I have undertaken. I became interested in details, materials and construction from the inhabited spaces of architecture, the space within and between buildings.

The research undertaken has been stimulated by practice and by the construction of award winning architecture. Design has fuelled research and design has been supported by research in a symbiotic relationship, underscored by rigour and scholarship. The process of designing can form research in itself – design as research. Designing architecture is more than problem solving, it is a creative process within which ideas can be explored, tested, realised and evaluated. Current research themes include: digital fabrication, form finding, offsite manufacture, façade design and procurement, tectonics, emergent materials, sustainability and zero carbon architecture.

Professor of Architecture

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

29 <

Background:

BSc (Eng), PhD (London), CEng, MCIBSE, MIGasE, AMRAeS Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Environmental design & Tectonics

> 30

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Wind tunnel modelling of natural ventilation

Natural ventilation design theoretical models

Unsteady leakage measurement of buildings

The main advantage of wind tunnels lies in their ability to reproduce the effects of wind turbulence, thereby avoiding uncertainties of theoretical modelling. Direct measurement of ventilation rates in models, including buoyancy, has been a major area of our research. One aim has been to determine the limitations of direct measurement for design.

The emphasis here is on improving and extending theoretical procedures for the design of naturally ventilated buildings. Of particular interest are envelope flow models and the manner in which account is taken of adventitious leakage, stacks, chimneys, wind turbulence and stratification.

Measurement of the adventitious leakage of building envelopes now forms part of the UK Building Regulations. The conventional steady leakage technique suffers from large uncertainties, primarily due to the fact that it is carried out at pressures that are much greater than those for natural or mechanical ventilation.

Chimneys are commonly employed in natural ventilation systems.

However wind turbulence can cause flow reversal. A novel hot-wire technique for measuring instantaneous flows in chimneys has been developed, which enables flow reversal to be investigated under realistic operating conditions.

Wind effects can also reduce the effectiveness of ventilation openings and techniques have been developed that allow these effects to be quantified for design

Unsteady envelope flow models have been developed for predicting the effects of wind turbulence on mean flows and on instantaneous flows through envelope openings.

Good agreement with experimental data has been demonstrated.

The conditions for which unsteady effects are significant to the mean ventilation rate have been identified and expressed in a simple form. Of current interest is the effect on the instantaneous flows in chimneys, where flow reversal can occur, either intermittently or permanently.

A new unsteady technique has been developed that allows the leakage to be quickly and accurately measured at the low pressures encountered with natural ventilation e.g. 4 Pa. This has not been possible before.

The technique makes use of pulse pressurisation aided by an unsteady theoretical model. One of the key features of the technique is the manner in which the effects of wind pressures are eliminated.

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David Etheridge

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Drawing upon my experience as a practising architect my research aims to critically understand the coevolution of architectural design and the socio-economic processes shaping buildings. My research draws upon the Philosophy if Technology and applies critical methods for understanding technological and environmental innovation. My aim is to highlight the mutual shaping processes between buildings and social practices and I have employed this approach to understand sustainable design which I interpret neither as a purely technical or an exclusively social problem. Rather, my work explores the possibilities or otherwise for strategic synchronisation of social and technical change. In my recent work I have explored the social construction of sustainable design where the main concern has been with the contested nature of sustainable design and the competing discourses of green building.

My approach aims to critically interrogate the prevailing technoeconomic model of sustainable design and by analysing sustainable architectures in the plural it has identified a diverse range of interpretations of the environmental challenge. This work was documented in an award winning paper for the Journal of Architectural Education which presented a typology of six metadiscourses of sustainable architecture. I have also extended this sociotechnical perspective to number of journal papers that focus on sustainable building technniques and technologies such as natural ventilation and passive solar design which have been interpreted based not only on their physical performance characteristics but also in terms of their cultural horizon. It is the relationship between these dual aspects of sustainable technology that tends to be decisive in terms of their use and evolution.

I am currently completing a major book for the Routledge Architext series entitled ‘Reinterpreting Sustainable Architecture: Theories, Discourses, Practices’. The book draws upon a range of perspectives and theories that illuminate both the contested nature of green design and the socially constructed nature of sustainable architectural practice. In applying sociological approaches to the analysis of architecture; technological strategies and alternative visions of sustainable places the book explores the implications of the contested nature of ecological design for architectural education, practice and research. The book concludes by arguing for an approach to sustainability that is based on the theory of critical pluralism and the notion of reflective practice, two concepts that continue to relate my research to my approach to teaching and design.

Graham Farmer Background:

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���������

BA (Hons) (Sheffield), DipArch (Sheffield), RIBA III Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Architectural Humanities

31 <

Background:

BSc PhD MCIBSE

Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies

> 32

Selected publications: “A novel rainwater-ground source heat pump – Measurement and simulation”, ATE, 2007, 27, 430441.

“Simulation of buoyancy-induced flow in open cavities for natural ventilation”, E&B, 2006, 38, 410420.

"CFD modelling of air flow and thermal performance of an atrium integrated with photovoltaics", B&E, 2004, 39, 735 – 748.

"Analysis of mean radiant temperature and thermal comfort", BSER&T, 2001, 22(2), 95-101.

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This ground source heat pump system is designed to make use of rainwater and ground as heat sources/sinks. Two heat exchangers are used – one to transfer heat between the heat pump and rainwater in a storage tank and another (2nd) - to transfer heat between the stored rainwater and surrounding soil. CFD modelling has been performed for a rainwater storage tank installed under ground for domestic application of the heat pump with different operating modes, heating loads and the sizes and types of 2nd heat exchanger solid or heat pipes. Measurement of the system performance has also been conducted.

A radiant heat transfer model has been developed to assess the effects of the glazing type, size and location of windows as well as HVAC systems such as radiators on the variation of radiant temperature and thermal comfort in buildings. �������������������������������������

The performance of PV arrays integrated into the atrium roof at the University of Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus and the indoor and outdoor environments have been monitored. The PV performance and indoor environment have also been modelled using CFD. This work has demonstrated that CFD is a useful tool for optimising building ventilation systems to provide a comfortable indoor environment and effective cooling of building integrated photovoltaics.

Project report: "PV monitoring at Jubilee Campus – Nottingham University", ETSU S/P2/00347/REP, DTI, 2002, 39pp.

This report describes performance monitoring for the PV arrays integrated into the atrium roof at the University of Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus and assessment of the effectiveness of the ventilation strategies at cooling the PV arrays and the effect on the quality of the climate in the atrium space. ������������������������������������

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Guohui Gan

I have experience in • Development and application of CFD software for fluid flow and heat transfer modelling • Measurement and assessment of thermal comfort and indoor air quality • Prediction and evaluation of the performance of renewables and energy efficient systems such as building-integrated photovoltaics, solar-assisted natural ventilation, heat recovery devices, evaporative cooling systems and ground source heat pumps • Thermal modelling of building structures.

Past research projects include the “project:LIFE” study undertaken for David Wilson Homes. The latest RFID (radio frequency identification) active tagging technology was used in a unique study to help understand how houses should be designed for today’s families. During the six month project a volunteer family of four were tagged with wristbands and monitored to ascertain how day to day they used the different rooms in the specially designed five bedroom 3,500 square foot split level concept home constructed in Sheffield. It is thought to be the first time that RFID has been used in a domestic situation. The RFID occupant tagging uses a 434Mhz VHF active tagging system, with each wristband tag broadcasting a unique ID at 0.4 second intervals.

These transmissions were monitored by a network of 26 readers placed strategically about the home hidden within the stud partition walls. In turn, the network regularly updated the location to tracking software running on a server PC to provide 24/7 event recording. The system was primarily intended to record the movements of each of the occupants, the location they visited, time of visit, the route they took to get there, and the time they actually spent there. Environmental monitoring of the project:LIFE house was also undertaken using a network of temperature/humidity sensors to study comfort levels. The home was also kitted out with a range of energy consumption meters to monitor and collect data which provided a complete picture of where the energy was used within the home, from lighting and heating circuits down to individual appliances. Accurate post occupancy evaluation and monitoring of buildings is an essential part of the evolutionary design process. More information on can be found at www.projectlife.info.

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Mark Gillott Background:

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Dr Mark Gillott is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Institute of Sustainable Energy Technology. He has over 13 years research experience in low carbon sustainable energy technologies and low energy buildings. He has a particular research interest in the design of sustainable homes and the technologies used to mitigate their carbon footprints. His work is widely published and he has presented numerous papers relating to his research at national and international conferences. He has also presented his research work internationally and nationally through television/radio media and his research work has been exhibited at the National Science Museum in London.

BEng (Oxford Brookes), MSc (UCL), PhD (Nottingham) Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology ����������������������������������

He is currently project managing the research and development of the "Creative Energy Homes Project" at the University of Nottingham – a showcase of five innovative state-of-the-art energy efficient homes of the future. Other current projects include the EPSRC funded Investigation of Heat Pipes for Effective Thermoelectric Heat Pumping and a Fundamental Study of Future Energy Use in Heating the Home.

Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies

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I am an architect, Associate Professor and Director of Research in Architecture. Within the School I act as Course Director for the Master of Architecture (Design) and the interdisciplinary MA in Architecture and Critical Theory. My research interests include: architectural theory and criticism; the philosophy of technology; the relationship between architecture and the body; museums and architectural exhibitions. My research in these areas has resulted in a series of published books, chapters in books, refereed articles and conference papers. I have also obtained grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Arts Council and local industry. Alongside my role as research coordinator for the School’s Architectural History and Theory Group (AHTG) I am also a founder member and coordinator of the international subject network: Architectural Humanities Research Association.

In the year 2000 I published a book called 'Building Ideas: An Introduction to Architectural Theory', presenting a series of methodologies for the critical interpretation of buildings. These were drawn from the interdisciplinary field of critical theory and inspired by the major schools of 20th century philosophy: phenomenology and hermeneutics, structuralism and Marxism. I have applied some of these critical methods in my subsequent research, resulting in a published monograph on the work of Edward Cullinan Architects (Image 1).

Drawing specifically on the insights offered by phenomenology, I have recently published two articles focussing on the relationship between architecture and the body.

One with a historical emphasis on the ideas of Gottfried Semper (ARQ 9/1, 2005) and the other emerging from a postgraduate studio project for an exhibition on the New Art Gallery Walsall (Image 2).

On the exhibition theme, I have also been involved in a series of collaborative practice-led research projects with the Mixed Reality Lab of Nottingham’s School of Computer Sciences to explore the curatorial potential of mobile information technologies (Image 3).

Beginning with ‘Moving City’ in 2003 (with Nottingham Castle Museum) the latest phase involves the Austrian artist and choreographer Willi Dorner. A recent grant from the Arts Council will fund a new interactive performance event for the Nottingham-based Radiator Festival for new technology arts 2007. Alongside colleagues in the School I am also part of a University-wide network of researchers investigating the impact of ‘pervasive media’ across a number of humanities disciplines.

With start-up funding from the University’s Humanities Research Centre this group is currently preparing a bid to the AHRC’s ‘Beyond Text’ programme.

Background:

BSc BArch (Bath)MSc (Pennsylvania) RIBA FRSA Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Architectural Humanities

> 34

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Jonathan Hale

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Stephen Platt My background is in social anthropology and my main interests are in relationship of people to design. I am also fascinated by trying to make research, especially social research, more relevant to design. The pace of design and research is different, research demands different skills and designers are not necessarily equipped, by education or inclination, to do research. The importance of research is to reduce the uncertainty inherent in design by improving the information available to the designer. I am attempting to improve the research skills of students in my architectural research methods course. And this idea of making research finding relevant to design has been at the heart of Cambridge Architectural Research where I have been a director of since 1990 and its Chairman since 2001.

There is a lack of affordable housing in South East England and the

Government wants to build many more homes. Cambridge Futures had a major impact on development in the Cambridge area and the rest of the region. It has also influenced thinking about how to engage stakeholders in planning the future. The Housing Futures study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation tested the public’s reaction to development options that would increase the supply of housing. It got people to think about what types of house should be built and where they should go and demonstrated that there is no blanket opposition to growth. As well as increasing the environmental performance of these new homes, we also need to think about the sustainability of new settlements in a wider context. An study of Cambourne, a new settlement of 4,000 homes due ten miles west of Cambridge for Inspire East made an holistic assessment of community sustainability and generated

a number of important lessons for the development of other new settlements in the South East.

Many towns that have lost their economic base are trying to reinvent themselves and regenerate their economy and infrastructure.

The Urban Futures study of Burnley and Luton for CABE and the RIBA focused on city centre neighbourhoods in the two towns. By interviewing policy makers, service providers and member of the community in each town we developed a set of options aimed at regenerating the neighbourhood and the wider area. We devised a game and brought stakeholders round the table to discuss and plan the future.

This approach to bringing people from different sides of the planning process together to discuss options for change proved much more fruitful than traditional forms of consultation and participation.

Background:

BSc BArch PhD (Cambridge) RIBA Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Urban Design Architectural Humanities

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Active Thermal Insulators (ATI) are a new class of materials that actively use solar energy to pump heat in the direction opposite to the passive heat conduction direction. ATI materials differ significantly from conventional materials as there thermal conductivity is no longer determined by the thickness of a material system only. In our current research we have established the theoretical viability of this technology using bulk components.

Recent material advances offer the opportunity to yield extremely thin, efficient, and lower cost ATIsystems with potential application as a glazing system. The basic goals of this research are to uncover the theoretical and practical viability of such new material systems, and to clear the path for the development of ATI-system architectures that operate at the nanometer scale.

Rigidified Inflatable Structures (RIS) are defined as thin flexible membrane structures that are pneumatically deployed, after deployment these structures harden due to chemical or physical change of the membrane. As a result, a structural skin is obtained that can be used to construct a variety of three-dimensional rigid load bearing structures. With the aim to reduce the cost and examine the feasibility of RIS structures for application in mainstream construction, a new material was proposed, developed, and evaluated. This material involves the formation of a semiinterpenetrating polymer network based on organic polymers and reactive plasticizers. Various compositions of this new material were evaluated; and tensile and dynamic mechanical properties were determined. We have further optimized various RIS enclosure systems that can be used in housing design.

Steven Van Dessel

Background:

Dip Arch PhD

Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

> 36

Convergence of disciplines has emerged as the preferred model for scientific discovery, a trend catalyzing many new discoveries in such areas as nano-technology and bio-technology. These new frontiers challenge the practice of architecture. While thinking across scales has a long tradition within the profession (from urban to material detail), the extension of scale within the realm of ecology (larger), and material science (smaller) is just emerging. There are many indicators today that suggest that solutions to prevailing environmental problems are likely to be found through the development of new systems that operate at the scales of molecules, mimicking natural processes and systems. With increasing global population, and changing consumption patterns, these dimensions of architecture can no longer be ignored. The main objective of my research is to engage this new frontier.

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SOUND AND STRAW Straw might not be everybody’s first choice of building material. It gets wet and rots, it’s a fire risk, it must have awful sound insulating properties and, oh yes, there’s that age old problem of the big bad wolf! Thankfully things have moved on and when used correctly straw bales can be used as giant building blocks to provide healthy, safe and environmentally responsible buildings. Anecdotal evidence relating to sound insulation indicates they can provide good privacy. Understanding why poses an interesting research problem.

Straw is a poro-elastic material capable of absorbing sound passing through it, as well as isolating one face from sources of vibration acting on the other. Both of these properties are highly sought after by noise engineers and form the subject of an investigation being undertaken with Peter Rutherford.

THE ENVIRONMENT WITHIN MEMBRANE ENCLOSURES Conventional buildings are designed to safely transfer the crushing effect of their self weight and imposed loads to the ground.

Architectural fabrics offer a new approach to building. Thin, lightweight and durable, they work in tension rather than compression and may be distorted to form stable, typically double curved, shapes. They present an opportunity to enclose massive spaces economically. Realising these ambitions required advances in the understanding of the structural behaviour of membranes.

By comparison, understanding of how energy flows across the membrane skin influence the environment prevailing within the enclosed space lags significantly behind. PhD work by Tibo Devulder, co-supervised by John Chilton from Lincoln University used monitoring and computer modelling to explore what drives the environment within membrane enclosures.

BUILDING INTEGRATED PHOTOVOLTAICS Photovoltaic cells convert sunlight into electricity. Connecting a number of them and protecting them behind a sheet of glass produces a material that can be used to form the envelope of a building, which in addition to keeping out the rain, also acts as a mini power station. Building integrated photovoltaics are not new, however, there's still much to learn about how best to integrate them into the design of buildings.

Obviously they impact on the appearance and performance of building envelopes, but their integration with the electrical systems within buildings is no less important. Participation in government funded programmes to encourage the uptake of the technology and collaboration with partners such as the Nottingham Energy Partnership has provided experience in the design, installation and monitoring of building integrated photovoltaic systems.

Background:

BEng, PhD (Heriot-Watt)

Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

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Robin Wilson

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies Environmental design & Tectonics

37 <

Background:

BA (Nottingham), BArch (Nottingham), PG DipArch (Leicester) Role:

Associate Professor

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Urban Design Environmental design & Tectonics

> 38

The Skybridge as an Evacuation Option for Tall Buildings in Hong Kong.

Principal investigators: Antony Wood, University of Nottingham & Professor W.K. Chow, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. This research project proposes the idea of introducing horizontal evacuation at height through creating skybridge linkages between towers. The concept of evacuating occupants at a level other than ground, should the building be at risk, is a sensible proposition, especially if the risk to the tall building effectively cuts off vertical evacuation routes and thus connection to the ground plane.

Additionally, use of the skybridge in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, has shown there can be a significant commercial saving with the increased evacuation efficiency allowing a reduction in number of fire stairs.

The research project models hypothetical and retrospective skybridge configurations in an existing tall building cluster in the CBD of Hong Kong. The over-riding aim of the research proposal is to investigate the resulting effects on evacuation efficiency, as a strategy towards the inclusion of skybridges in high-rise design as a mechanism for the improved safety of tall buildings the world over.

Tall Building Technologies 3-year PhD Studentship, funded by Ove Arup Ltd. Supervisor: Antony Wood. PhD Student = Philip Oldfield. Tall Buildings are being built which increasingly push technological limits, however many people remained unconvinced as to the suitability of the tall building as a viable typology in our urban fabric, especially when the increased embodied energies of construction, energy in operation and long–term maintenance costs are taken into account. Further, many of the advancements in specific tall building disciplines are being considered in isolation from other fields – there has been very little research conducted that looks at the combined effects of the emerging technologies holistically.

This project seeks to counteract that, by considering not only the state-of-the-art in each specific technological discipline, but the combined effects of these technologies on each other.

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For more on the research output of the Tall Buildings Teaching and Research Group, see www.tallbuildingstarg.com �����������������������������������������

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Antony Wood

The Tall Buildings Teaching and Research Group, founded formally in 2004 by Antony Wood, brings together international experts in the field of Tall Building design, construction and management, across both practice and academia.

Based at the University of Nottingham’s Institute of Architecture, the group aims to explore and promote all aspects of Tall building teaching and research.

The design research studio is a vital medium for the exploration of ideas into tall building design, as exemplified by some of the projects in the images left. Current funded research projects include:

CURRENT RESEARCH FOCUS: 1. Heat transfer enhancement, heat exchanger design, CFD modelling.

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2. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of heat transfer: MD simulation provides a direct route from a microscopic description of a system to the macroscopic properties of experimental interest.

The method is employed to explore the complex liquid-vapour-solid system in a micro-channel heat sink at a microscopic level. The LennardJones potential is applied to atoms of argon as liquid and vapour, and platinum as solid substrates, to perform a simulation of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics. The results suggest that for a complete wetting system, there is a nonevaporating liquid film with thickness in nanometres existing on the heating solid surface. The minimum film thickness near the triple-phase contact line under different conditions of the substrate temperature is predicted.

3. Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) modelling: LBM is a mesoscopic numerical method based on the solution of lattice Boltzmann equation. The key idea behind the LBM is to recover the correct macroscopic motion of the fluid by incorporating the complicated physics of the problem into simplified microscopic models or mesoscopic kinetic equations.

Current work includes: (1) Bubble dynamics including coalescence, (2) Flow across rotational cylinder and heat transfer, (3) Two-phase mixing, (4) Biomimetic hydrophobic to hydrophlic functional surface.

Yuying Yan

Background:

BSc MSc PhD

Role:

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Dr Yuying Yan is an associate professor and research group leader in applied thermofluids, biomimetics & modelling in the School of the Built Environment. His early research on two-phase heat transfer in the UK was on experimental and numerical modelling of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) enhancement of nucleate boiling and phase change process. Since 1996, he has focused on fundamental aspects of two-phase bubbly flow and gas-liquid interfacial interactions. He was a PI for EPSRC grant GR/M90207, in which a novel numerical procedure has been developed; the transport phenomena in the vicinity of a gasliquid interface and bubble evolution were successfully simulated; the EPSRC IGR rated the research outcome as outstanding and the research as tending to international leading. He is also PI for a Royal Society Project on biomimetics (Ref. 15127) and an EPSRC project on microchannel flow (EP/D500125/1); in which micro/mesoscopic numerical simulation have been applied to study multiphase flow and heat transfer problems, and major progress has been achieved. His research has also been supported by Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery Ltd on narrow channel film cooling.

He has successfully supervised five PhD students and published more than 100 academic papers in refereed journals and conferences.

He is a member of the EPSRC peer Review College and editorial board of the Journal of Bionic Engineering.

Associate Professor

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Building Services

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Background:

BArch DipArch PGDip MPhil Phd

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

> 40

Buildings are often assimilated to cells whose enveloping membranes maintain constant and favourable internal conditions by carefully managing the inputs and outputs of resources and energy.

Basing on this metaphor, this research combines information on cutting-edge devices and techniques with principles of biomimicry of adaptive natural systems, an innovative approach to technology - in a society that has for centuries been convinced of its capacity of dominating or, sometimes, ‘improving’ Nature based on what we can learn from the natural world rather than, as we have been doing since the Industrial Revolution, merely extracting from it.

A responsive envelope has to integrate the notions of natural adaptation - where the chances of survival depend on the ability to adjust to the environment - within the concept of technical evolution.

One of the challenges of the research is to move away from a design approach that exploits technological development per se, to one that has environmental and 'human' objectives.

Rather than focusing solely on energy efficiency, the research aims at defining solutions which integrate environmental awareness with the pursuit of physical comfort in built spaces, while also contributing to the physiological and psychological well-being of occupants. In this context, for example, adaptive daylight strategies represent a theme where technical, environmental and human needs could come together.

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Sergio Altomonte

Buildings are responsible for more than half of the energy consumption worldwide, significantly contributing - with the CO2 emissions they trigger - to the very causes of climate change.

In this context, advances in design, technology and conception of façade systems play a significant role.

Convention regards the building envelope as a passive shelter protecting the building from external agents. However, the need to minimise energy consumption, curb emissions, together with the request of providing for the comfort of occupants, have triggered a revaluation of the envelope’s role into conceiving it as an interface which has to comprehensively meet environmental and users requirements.

Various façade components have been developed to shield internal spaces from solar overheating, optimise the transmission of visible light, reduce thermal losses, minimise glare, distribute light into the rooms, generate energy, etc.

However, despite these advances in technology, the design of a façade still remains an intricate and complex task.

A 'one-size-fits-all' approach is illsuited to the complex demands that most building functions entail.

Rather, adaptive envelopes design has to be carried out according to methodologies that not only respond to architecturally and environmentally sound mandates, but also can accommodate conflicting needs of collection and dissipation of energy that have to be continuously balanced over time.

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Media coverage at the construction site

Image composition of the house

Section through the sun space

As a qualified architect in Chile since 1993, there’s several built housing, infrastructure and industrial projects completing in excess 3,000 sq.m. In parallel I developed a lecturer career specialised in studio design.

During this period my research was focused in restoration of Industrial heritage and the exploration of architectural design through digital means, producing several publications in International conferences and books. In the year 2000 I moved to the Uk to carry out postgraduate studies on Renewable Energy and Architecture. Since 2001 I became a Lecturer in the University of Nottingham. Current research interest covers the Integration of Renewable Energy systems into building design, Energy Efficient design and issues related to globalisation v/s local identity.

In the last 5 years my research work has been concentrated formulating and master planning the Creative Energy Homes project, with emphasis in the Architectural Design of the Stoneguard C-60 research house. This project integrates a number of innovative constructive systems with energy efficient technologies to achieve a reduction of Carbon emissions in 60%.

The main research task relates to the integration of all those technologies into a harmonious design, which normally is left behind giving preference to technical compatibility and even commercial interests of those industrial partners involved.

The project considers an intensive period of post construction monitoring involving end-users and a complex system of sensors integrated in the building, which will be my research target for the next years.

Guillermo Guzman Dumont

Background:

Architect

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Sustainable Technologies Environmental design & Tectonics

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Background:

BSc (Hon’s) PhD MIMMM CSci

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Sustainable Technology Environmental design & Tectonics

> 42

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Matthew Hall

Current & previous research projects include: • The Effect of Soil Particle-Size Distribution on the Moisture Ingress & Migration in Rammed Earth materials • Using stabilised rammed earth materials for passive air conditioning; thermo-hygro properties • The Effect of Stabilisers and Soil Particle-Size Distribution on the Rate of Water Dissipation • The role of inter-particle moisture suction forces on the strength of partially saturated rammed earth soils • Scanning electron microscope (SEM) & energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX) of tenaciously bonded black soiling on architectural terracotta ceramic materials (English Heritage) • Solar car parks: using optimised asphalt materials for a solar hot water collection system • Understanding and Controlling the Ingress of Driven Rain through Exposed, Solid Masonry Wall Structures (English Heritage) • Determining the interrelation between soil grading parameters and varying moisture content on the thermal conductivity of stabilised rammed earth (SRE) materials • The Effect of Ordinary Portland Cement Stabilisation on the Engineering Properties of Rammed Earth • The Effect of Clay on the Water Absorption Properties of Rammed Earth • A Microstructural Examination of As-Cast and Heat Treated CoCrMo Alloy using SEM with EDX • Investigation of the AntiCorrosion Properties of Sol-Gel

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The book Museum Builders II explores contemporary museum commissions, which both demonstrate and generate aspects of national, ethnic, regional, civic, and personal identity. The dialogue of ‘identity and difference’ finds varied architectural expression in the projects highlighted, which range dramatically in scale, context, thematics, and intent, but all raise questions of architectural representation. At times the natural landscape provides inspiration, and rich archaeological and architectural caches have also been plundered by designers in a quest to give identity to their built form. Several featured museum projects address the meeting of cultures as defining moments in history, and these encounters have left a tenacious legacy on the architecture and exhibitions of those museums, and reveal the museum’s lasting role in the construction and depiction of identities.

With ‘the creation of a symbol of national pride and identity’ as the main programmatic objective, no later twentieth-century Canadian building project reveals a more explicit agenda of homogenous nation-building than the Canadian Museum of Civilization at Ottawa.

Since opening in 1989, the Museum building has received a largely favourable reception from both press and profession.

However, within the multi-ethnic context of late twentieth-century Canada, the creation of a physical monument to symbolize a cohesive or unilateral national imagination was undeniably both challenging and contentious. This chapter, 'Nation, City, Place: Rethinking Nationalism at the Canadian Museum of Civilization?', in the book, 'Architecture and the Formation of the Canadian Fabric', considers the uniting agency of the architectural fabric in this reflection and/or creation of national consciousness.

This funded project, entitled 'The Museum: Messages + Mediation', brings together academics with related museological research interests. It explores how and why the museum conveys meanings, and mediates the messages it transmits. These meanings are revealed at a variety of important scales, through: • The physical and symbolic role of the museum within the urban realm, and its social, economic, and cultural contribution via cultural tourism and urban/economic regeneration.

• The architectural dimension of the museum; meanings inherent in architectural structure and language of the museum are manifold.

• The pedagogical, social, and political objectives and agendas of the exhibition design. The role of displays in entertainment is also important here, as are new technological opportunities offered by the internet, multi-media, and embedded and interactive technologies.

Background:

BA (Liverpool), PhD

Role:

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Laura Hanks

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Architectural Humanities

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Expertise & Research Interests

Current research projects

Research outcomes and awards

After qualified as an architect with expertise in integrated environmental design, I have engaged in practice since 1996. I read Architecture at the Hong Kong University (RIBA Part 1), Bartlett School of Architecture (RIBA Part 2&3) and Cambridge University (MPhil in Environmental Design).

1) The poetics of light in Le Corbusier’s religious buildings (This research was initially funded by the Kettle’s Yard Research Fund and the Travel Scholarship from Darwin College in Cambridge. Further research funding was provided by the RIBA Research Trust Award in 2006).

2) A collaborative research project with Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences on the environmental performance of vernacular dwellings in south east China.

3) A book contract with the publisher Lawrence King on the Environmental Design Process in Architecture.

4) The daylight benefits of specular surfaces in top-lit atria.

5) The luminous environment of the scholar gardens in China.

Publications: 1) The Poetics of Sacred Light – an investigation of the luminous environment in the Monastery of La Tourette. A research paper submitted for the PLEA 2007 – The 24th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Singapore, 22-24 November 2007.

2) The Environmental Performance of Traditional Courtyard Housing in China – Case study: Zhang’s House.

(Co-authors: Professor Brian Ford and Hongru Zhang). A research paper presented in the 23rd PLEA Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 September 2007.

3) The Daylight Benefits from Specular Surfaces in Top-lit Atria. A research paper submitted to Architectural Science Review for publication in June 2007 (review in progress).

Background:

BAAS(Hons) DipArch/MSc MPhil(Cantab) RIBA Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

> 44

My research interests are the integrated environmental design methodology and the poetics of light in architecture. Understanding the micro-climate in the urban environment and its relationship to low energy building design forms a key component in my teaching and architectural projects, and the use of building performance prediction tools to support architectural decision-making has been a design approach adopted in building projects world wide.

Awards: 1) RIBA Research Trust Award 2007.

2) EPSRC Cooperative Awards in Science and Engineering 06-07.

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Benson Lau

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I am a Chartered (Energy) Engineer and a member of the Energy Institute. I have research expertise in coal combustion, power plant engineering, fluidized bed technology, and biomass combustion and gasification. I have designed and tested a number of laboratory-scale and pilot-scale combustion facilities in sizes ranging from a fraction of 1 kW to 20 MW and have extensive research experience in modelling of combustion, gasification and power plant power generation.

My current on-going research projects include: (1) Small-scale biomass-fired CHP system (with Prof. Saffa Riffat and RA to be appointed)

(2) Geothermal heat pumps (with Prof. Saffa Riffat and Mr. Chris Wood) -This project is funded by EPSRC/Roger Buillivant Ltd. For details of the project, please refer to the description of the PhD research project of Chris Wood.

(3) Development of biomassfuelled CHP/cooling system (with Prof. Saffa Riffat and Miss Yingjuan Shao) - For details of the project, please refer to the description of the PhD research project of Miss Yingjuan Shao.

Previous projects included: (1) Reburning for NOx emission control (EPSRC funded); (2) Strategies for reduction of N2O emissions from coal combustion in a circulating fluidized bed (EPSRC funded) (3) Process simulation of circulating fluidized beds with combustion/gasification of biomass (EU funded) (4) Coal combustion in CO2 rich flue gas – an approach to industrial applications in power stations (ECSC funded)

This project is funded by EPSRC and involves international collaboration with University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany). The project aims to develop a novel, first-of-its-kind 2 kWe biomassfired combined heat and power (CHP) system suitable for public and large domestic buildings' application. The specific objectives of the project are: (a) to prove that the concept of power generation through biomass combustion combined with an organic Rankine turbine cycle is suitable for biomass-fuelled CHP systems as small as 2 kWe; (b) to design, construct and evaluate the first-ofits-kind 2 kWe biomass-fired CHP system; (c) to develop a computer model for the proposed 2 kWe biomass-fired CHP system. The project is scheduled to be completed by 31 May 2008.

My current research interests concentrate on sustainable fossil fuel utilisation, renewable energy technologies, in particular biomass technology, and carbon abatement technologies. Interested future research topics include (1) hydrogen production from biomass & fuel cells (2) co-combustion of biomass and fossil fuels (3) CO2 capture (4) gasification of biomass (5) oxy-fuel combustion etc.

Hao Liu

Background:

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BEng MEng PhD CEng MEI

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Sustainable Technologies

45 <

Background:

BSc MSc PhD MISES

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies

> 46

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The urban style of living in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries has changed significantly over recent decades and this has been accompanied by a massive increase in the use of electrical energy. Air conditioning equipment is one of the main energy consumers in this region. Although southern and eastern Mediterranean countries enjoy a high level of solar insolation (6 – 7 kWh per square metre per day), the region’s electricity supply system is very vulnerable. Huge investment in the electricity generation infrastructure will be required, if energy demand continues to rise.

The proposed research project aims to investigate an advanced solardriven air-conditioning system suitable for the Mediterranean climate. The proposed system comprises modular evacuated solar tubes coupled with an ejectorcooling device, and a cold storage booster.

The evacuated tubes could be installed on the roofs of buildings in order to collect solar energy. The heat from the tubes would be extracted and used to produce vapour to drive a jet refrigeration device. The proposed system uses a new, compact ejector configuration that incorporates all the ejector components in a shell-and-tube like, heat exchanger. The proposed ejector system eliminates the need for separate heat exchangers, and allows more effective heat transfer in the evaporator as well as condenser sections of the ejector.

Significant reduction of the size, weight and cost of the ejector system is therefore possible.

Other components of the system include a cold storage unit, employing micro-encapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) slurries, in addition to an air handing unit which could be integrated into the existing airconditioning system.

The project consortium will comprise leading universities and companies from five European and Mediterranean countries. These are all centres of excellence in developing, applying and marketing renewable and sustainable technologies. In addition to the technology transfer and know-how, which will benefit the countries of the Mediterranean partners, the proposed project will provide benefits to the European and Mediterranean Community in terms of energy saving and reduced CO2 emissions, improved working and living environments and financial benefits relevant to industrial development.

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Siddig Omer

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His secondary research involves the transfer of Architectural knowledge to and from the Orient. This includes the issue of Chinoiserie, the Occidental imagery of the Orient and vice versa from 17c onwards. Quek looks at the involvement of the Jesuits in cataloguing Orientalia, from Anathasius Kircher to Fr. Du Halde, and the Jesuit contribution to modernity in the post colonial world. The travail of modernization of the Catholic Church as both edifice and spiritual body Quek argues can be seen as a model of the problem of Occidental / Oriental meeting in the modern world. A further interest is the problem of Nationalism. This is not seen as an issue of identity but as a larger problem of delay in revisionist modernity outside the Colonial centres of Europe. Quek is currently preparing to host an international symposium, “Theoretical Currents: Architecture and the Nation", December 2007.

Quek’s studio teaching follows closely his research in ideas of creation, representation and the intelligible. He co- founded and initiated “Design Speculum” – which is a distended mirror to creativity online, where students are able to blog, post images, discuss in a forum, and staff and international online teaching guests can participate. Design Speculum has proven to be a popular success also in the online supervision of dissertations. The initial ideas for Design Speculum were first mooted

by Quek & Thomas Kong, at CEBE; and developed in online supplements to traditional studio at Nottingham, Ryerson (Canada) and School of the Institute of Art Chicago (USA) in 2005. Online teaching guests at the last Design Speculum Studio involved academics in NZ, USA and UK. Quek's professional practice is raymond quek • architect, presently involved with housing projects.

Background:

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Raymond Quek Raymond Quek’s primary research strand deals with Architecture as a problem of creative knowledge, issues of visual and conceptual intelligibility in architectural thought. His work involves the study of creativity as recorded and propounded in early Architectural treatises, their problematic transfer as forms of knowledge across linguistic boundaries, the emergence of modern outlook in 17c Europe, the formulation of Modernity in Colonial World from 18c to 20c, and the present problems of reception of modernity in the post colonial world. Currently, he is looking at problems of transfer in the Anglophone world of Italianate sources and ideas and has published on problems of disegno.

His research is supported by a panUniversity Architectural History & Philosophy Research Focus Group he founded, involving Nottingham, De Monfort(Leicester), and University of Lincoln.

BA, BArch (Hons) (Liverpool), MPhil (Cambridge), ARB Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Architecturel Humanities

47 <

Background:

BSc, MSc, PhD (Strathclyde)

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

> 48

Speech Intelligibility in Higher Education Institute Lecture Theatres

Recently, room acoustics prediction and auralization have afforded new opportunities for the reconstruction of historical performance using virtual acoustic techniques. One such example lies in the intrinsic link between performance and the space in which it is performed.

Historically, composers created work for particular venues, and in their realisation, conductors and musicians tailored their performance to particular spaces. Recent research at acoustics.lab has explored this relationship between musical performance and the space in which it is performed using state of the art acoustic simulation and auralization techniques.

Room acoustic prediction models were created of several historic spaces, these models auralized in real-time. Musicians were placed in a recording booth and performed a piece of their choice, this piece ‘auralized’ with the simulated acoustic space and relayed back to them in real-time as they performed. In summary, musicians felt like they were playing in the original space, reporting that realtime auralization offered an authentic means of exploring and expressing musical performance.

Internationally, universities are witnessing a substantial demographic change in their incoming student populations, with significant emphasis being placed overseas recruitment. Given that the lecture is often the forum for information conveyance, with the student population having various levels of experience with the delivered language, it is essential that the acoustics of the venue itself play no part in degrading the reception of this language.

Research at acoustics.lab has explored this relationship between speech intelligibility and the target student population.

In summary, it was found that base language ability fundamentally influenced speech intelligibility, requiring pedagogical changes on the part of the lecturer to accommodate for the target population. Venues with poor acoustics fundamentally influenced perceived intelligibility for all listeners, but whilst native listeners could recover from such degradation through access to redundant linguistic, semantic and social information, those most severely disadvantaged were the non-native population who do not have complete access to such information.

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Rutherford, P., Wilson, R., and Bridges, A.H., “Ancient Echoes – Rediscovering Performance through Virtual Acoustic Reconstruction,” in the Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics Reproduced Sound 22, Vol.28. No.8. Oxford, November 2006.

Rutherford, P., Wilson, R., and Hickman, V., “Speech Intelligibility In Higher Education Institute Lecture Theatres,” in the Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics Intelligibility Measurements, Vol.28. No.6.

London, September 2006. ���������������������������������

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Peter Rutherford

Rediscovering Performance through Virtual Acoustic Reconstruction

My research objective is to develop a critical understanding of human relationship with water and the multitude of meanings, associations and responses, particularly religious, symbolic, recreational, and their manifestations in the historic architecture and the urban public realm along water edges in the Indian context. This includes developing sustainable strategies for specific waterfront environments that address subject areas, including but not limited to; urban design, architecture, socio-economics, culture, environment, conservation and regeneration. These research projects have led to a major publication entitled “Manifestation of the Urban Public Realm at the Water Edges in India – A Case Study of the Ghats in Ujjain” in ‘Cities The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning’ in 2004, and funding from the INTACH UK Trust (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage), for “An exploration of the Historic Core along Lake Pichola in Udaipur”, which I have recently presented at the 10th International Conference on Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Heritage Architecture (STREMAH 2007) in Prague.

Daylighting in atrium buildings has also been a focus of my research, resulting in a number of refereed journal and conference publications.

This work has employed parametric studies and digital modelling techniques. Investigations include studies of the effect of atrium geometry and surface reflectance distributions on Daylight Factors and Average Daylight Factors in Atrium Buildings. This work has been extended to comparative analysis of three different methods, physical model study, standard formula calculation and Radiance simulation, to establish the accuracy of different methods used to obtain daylight factor in atrium buildings.

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Swinal Samant Background:

DipArch (India), MArch (Sheffield)

My research has resulted in studio projects and supervision of student work linked to the research interests, works on ongoing PhD, research funding and consultancy, acting as editorial referee, publication of papers for referred journals and invited presentations at seminars as well as conference presentations.

Ongoing Research Projects: •Universitas 21 Network: Water Futures for Sustainable Cities Collaborative research proposal •PhD "Exploration of the design and use of day-lit atria and its adjoining spaces in Atrium Buildings" •Daylighting In Atria: A Review Of Studies On Spaces Adjoining The Atria • “The challenge of large student numbers in Schools of Architecture: Evolving strategies” (in collaboration with Antony Wood)

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

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My main area of research can be broadly categorized as Environmental Sustainability in Architecture, with a particular focus on 'Waterfront Regeneration’ in the Indian Context, ‘Daylighting in Atrium Buildings’ and 'Architectural Education and the Studio Culture'.

Architecture ����������������

Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics Urban Design

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49 <

Background:

BA (Hons) (Portsmouth) DipArch (Bartlett) Part III (Bartlett) Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Architecture Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Architectural Humanities

> 50

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Bradley Starkey

In 'Translations from Drawing to Building', Robin Evans observes that, unlike sculptors or painters, architects do not work directly with the object of their labour but work towards it through intervening media. Architects use drawings, texts and models to develop and communicate their ideas in the design process. However, whereas drawing and writing have been subjected to architectural theorisation, architectural models have escaped analysis. Likewise, architectural theorists use the modes of drawing and writing to theorise their work but they rarely use the architectural model as a critical or theoretical tool.

Consequently, architectural models tend to be limited to descriptive purposes in the design process.

My current research critically investigates aspects of the architectural model and it relates this to models of thought.

Specifically I am involved in research by design, and, using the model as a design tool, have constructed a series of levitating architectural models. Levitation is a key theme in my work because it raises questions about architects’ conceptions of matter and architects’ models of the human individual (as the maker and user of architecture): both of which have been conceived as reductive and secular. My research has been published in The Journal of Architecture and ARQ, and my design work has been exhibited at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 'Research Spaces.'

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RESEARCH INTERESTS: Air conditioning, natural ventilation, daylighting, sorption heat pumps, ejector cooling, combined heat and power, experimental thermodynamics, thermal energy storage, energy saving in refrigerators and heat pumps, heat pump assisted drying.

CURRENT RESEARCH ON NATURAL VENTILATION: Work is being undertaken n collaboration with Monodraught Ltd. and Nuaire Ltd. It aims to measure the ventilation flow rate of commercial Turbine Ventilators and Windcatchers on a purpose-built experimental rig for different wind speeds and directions as well as temperature differences. Both nozzle flowmeters and tracer gas methods were used and compared.

The results will be used to help develop models to simulate and predict the performance of these natural ventilation devices using FLUENT. Their dimension could be analysed and optimized.

Approaches to incorporate heat recovery and evaporative cooling with these natural ventilation devices will also be explored.

CURRENT RESEARCH ON DAYLIGHTING: Work is being undertaken in collaboration with Monodraught Ltd. The project has the following objectives: (1) To use FLUENT to study heat transfer through lightpipes. An equivalent thermal transmission value has been given.

(2) RADIANCE models are being validated as a means of predicting a lightpipes's transmittance. Good agreement has been obtained.

(3) To measure UV & IR transmittance of lightpipes. The results have indicated that the lightpipes are suitable for low UV built environment.

(4) To monitor daylight transmittance of various lightpipes.

A comparison has been made for different diameters, lengths and configurations.

(5) To establish an empirical equation for the prediction of the lightpipes's transmittance. The predicted values have been in a good agreement with the measured data.

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RECENT RESEARCH TOPICS: (1) An absorption heat pump using centrifugal separation.

(2) A miniature adsorption cooling device.

(3) An electrogasdynamic ejector system for cooling and power generation.

RESEARCH INFORMED TEACHING: I deliver a postgraduate module on air conditioning technology that draws directly on my research experience.

Yuehong Su

Background:

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BEng MPil PhD

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable technologies

51 <

Background:

BEng MSc PhD

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Sustainable Technologies

> 52

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Direct Ground Coupled Absorbers

Pervaporation Memberanes for Vapour Absorption Systems

Low Carbon Buildings

Many building environmental control systems have a need to reject heat to the external environment. In the case where the ground is used as a heat sink, it is a common practice to use a secondary loop to transfer heat from a refrigeration system to the ground.

However, for a system driven by a low temperature heat source, for example, a solar driven absorption refrigeration system, the temperature difference introduced by the secondary loop will significantly affect the COP of the system. This research investigated a new approach to cool the absorber of an absorption refrigerator by direct coupling the absorber with the ground, i.e., the absorbent of the refrigerator is directly cooled in the ground in order to eliminate the temperature difference caused by the secondary loop.

Distillation has been the usual choice for the concentration process in vapour absorption systems owing to its simplicity and low cost. However, distillation does have some drawbacks, for example it does not work efficiently when both refrigerant and absorbent of a working fluid are volatile; it cannot work with azeotropic solutions in which the components comprising the working fluid have the same boiling point; and it requires a large space for interfacing the liquid and vapour. These problems have a negative impact on the system performance. This research investigated the use of a pervaporation membrane for the concentration process in a vapour absorption system.

Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the carbon emissions in the UK, with nonresidential buildings accounting for almost half of this. In this latter category, there is a significant proportion of older buildings, many of which have poor energy performance and outdated structural and service design. The scheduled refurbishment of these buildings at key points in their lifetime would provide an excellent opportunity to improve their carbon efficiency. This project investigates the ways to link the potential energy saving with the age of buildings and models the relationship between them. The research results could be used to assess the potential for improving energy performance of aged office buildings by undertaking a holistic update of their environmental control strategies.

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Shenyi Wu

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Project 1 - Low Energy Ventilation/Cooling System

Project 2 - A Novel Heat and Mass Exchanger for Dew Point Cooling

Project 3 - Heat Pipe Performance Simulation and Testing

This research is investigating an innovative ventilation and low energy cooling system for improving indoor air quality and thermal comfort in buildings. The system employs roof mounted wind driven ventilation units combined with a membrane fibre heat exchanger, indirect evaporative cooling stack and a desiccant cooling pad. These technologies will enhance natural ventilation with the inclusion of heat recovery, cooling and dehumidification. Specific objectives of the project are computer modelling, design, construction, laboratory testing and validation of the prototype systems, as well as economic and environmental analyses. Innovative features include enhanced cooling using a new type of psychrometric energy core and both wind driven and solar boosted ventilation with precise control of the overall system.

This research aims to optimise the design of a new type of exchanger employing a new type of polygonal configuration. The exchanger is expected to lead to a 15 to 35% improvement in both wet bulb and dew point effectiveness. The new exchanger will be able to produce a cold supply air stream that is below 16 to 20 degrees Celsius and is suitable for air conditioning of buildings in Europe. This innovation will eliminate the need of fossil fuel based electricity for cooling, and will have obvious benefits in terms of reduced fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission to the environment.

The research aims to investigate the effects on thermal performance and operating characteristics of normal round and non-round heat pipes by changing their shapes along the length, such as bending or twisting.

These characteristics occur occasionally in heat pipes used for cooling of electronic components.

This work will involve a literature review, computer modelling of fluid flow and heat transfer within normal and shape-changed heat pipes, design and construction of a rig for testing of various heat pipes, testing of the selected heat pipes using the rig, as well as validation / tuning of the computer model using the experimental data.

Background:

BEng MSc PhD MCIBSE CEng

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

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Xuding Zhao

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Building Services

53 <

Jie Zhu

Background:

BEng MEng PhD

Role:

Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

The cooler consists of a porous ceramic container filled with water.

Water permeates through the multitude of pores in the container.

Air movement causes water to siphon to the surface of the ceramic container where it evaporates and so creates a cooling effect. The cooler combines a porous ceramic container with passive heat pipes which transfer the coolth to the interior of a building, while keeping the ceramic container and the evaporation process outside the building. This therefore provides a simple and low-energy cooling effect without creating a moisture problem. As the cooler has no moving parts, it requires little or no maintenance and has a long life expectancy.

A group of indirect evaporative coolers are assembled to form the chilled ceiling. The evaporator section of heat pipe is in the room, and a fan is adopted for inside airflow. The heat pipe adiabatic section is through the wall of room.

Its condenser section is in porous ceramic, which is in the outside of the room. The chilled ceiling performances are based on the experimental data. The temperature drop 3.8 oC per square meter of ceramic surface area was achieved for the room with 18 m3 space.

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Research Activities Group(s):

Building Services Environmental design & Tectonics

> 54

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Environmental concern about CFCs, HCFCs and some of their new replacements (e.g., HFCs are greenhouse gases) has stimulated research to develop innovative and “environmentally-friendly” air conditioning systems. This project has investigated a passive cooler system using water as the working fluid and porous ceramic combined with heat pipes for indirect evaporative air cooling.

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Recent amendments to the UK Building Regulations require most new buildings to meet specified air tightness standards. At present a steady pressurisation technique is used to show compliance, however, among other deficiencies it cannot determine the leakage at the low pressures typically found in practice.

This has led to the development of a novel pulse pressurisation technique that can measure the leakage more accurately at lower pressures than the conventional technique.

The technique works by measuring the internal pressure response of a building to a known and sudden volume change. The pulse is of sufficient length for quasi-steady flow to occur in the latter stages, minimising the effects of envelope flexing, eliminating errors due to uncertainties in inertia and allowing easy and direct analysis of results. It has been investigated both theoretically and experimentally and been found to be as sensitive to changes in leakage levels as the conventional technique, less susceptible to errors caused by fluctuating wind pressures and perhaps most importantly it has proved to be highly repeatable.

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Another ventilation project was an experimental investigation of unsteady flow using equipment from the University of Nottingham (UoN) in the facilities at Tokyo Polytechnic University (TPU) in Japan. The direction and magnitude of flow and the pressure inside and at the openings of a building model were measured under a range of different conditions and configurations. These data are being used for CFD analysis at TPU and comparisons with theory at UoN, as part of an ongoing collaborative project.

Present/future research interests include combining a ducted wind turbine with a natural ventilation stack for urban use. As well as offering potential advantages over conventional turbines in urban areas, ducted wind turbines could also be used to enhance natural ventilation and provide mechanical back up. The key challenge is to design a system that can work effectively as both a turbine and fan.

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Future research into the concept will focus on making it commercially viable, including the development of a new nozzle pulse generation unit. ����������������������������������

Other current research includes an investigation into the potential of using phase change material (PCM) with dynamic demand control (DDC) for use in the built environment. This centres on the concept of adjusting the on/off cycle of appliances and HVAC to stabilise the National Grid, reducing the need for Spinning Reserve and hence reducing carbon emissions.

PCM could aid the application of DDC as it slows down the heating and cooling cycle, giving increased opportunity for DDC to be used.

Ed Cooper

Background:

MEng PhD

Role:

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The main focus of my research to date has been working with David Etheridge to develop a novel pulse pressurisation technique for measuring the adventitious leakage of buildings.

Whitbybird Industrial Lecturer

Institute:

Sustainable Energy Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Environmental design & Tectonics

55 <

This project is aimed to develop a novel, first-of-its-kind, 10 kWe biomass-fired combined heat and power (CHP) system suitable for public and large domestic buildings’ application. The specific objectives of the project are: 1. To prove that the concept of power generation through biomass combustion combined with a refrigerant-driven Rankine turbine cycle is suitable for biomass-fuelled CHP systems as small as 10 kWe; 2. To design, construct and evaluate the first-of-its-kind 10 kWe biomass-fired CHP system; 3. To develop a computer model for the proposed 10 kWe biomass-fired CHP system.

Background:

Engineer

Role:

Research Fellow

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Sustainable Technologies

> 56

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Lei-Lei Dong

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CURRENT PROJECT My work is on an EPSRC funded project to investigate the use of revolving heat pipes for enhanced thermoelectric heat pumping. These are applied in an alternative energyefficient mechanical ventilation system that incorporates a heat pump for heat recovery, heating and cooling. A supply fan and duct system provides fresh air to living areas and bedrooms, while an extract fan and duct system exhausts stale, moist air from the kitchen and bathrooms.

The system will be energy efficient, compact and require little or no maintenance. It is hoped that deployment of the system would reduce the energy requirement for heating/cooling of buildings, and thus, emissions of CO2 and heating/cooling costs should also be reduced.

PAST RESEARCH PROJECTS 1) Heating/cooling/power trigeneration system.(Pilkington, UK. 2002/2005) 2) Solar powered ejector cooling system. (International cooperative project with Mexico. 2005) 3) Absorption-ejector hybrid refrigeration system. (National Nature Science Foundation of China, 1997/2000) 4) Freeze-drying process analysis.

(Major State Basic Research Development Program, China.

2000/2001) 5) Energy survey and retrofit with integration processing technology.

(PetroChina, Lanzhou Refining and Chemical Company, China. 1999)

The revolving heat pipes are coupled to thermoelectric devices for effective heat pumping of energy between the supply and exhaust flows. The research will investigate the use of different types of thermoelectric devices that can offer high performance heat pumping. An environmentallyfriendly working fluid will be used in the heat pipes.

Laboratory work has already been carried out to test the performance of initial prototype. It was designed to supply 1.0 kW of heat pumping.

Results showed that this system can deliver fresh air up to 105 cubic metres per hour with a COP of up to 0.86 for cooling and 1.90 for heating. The design and construction of an experimental heat pump system is in progress and will be tested using the School’s laboratory facilities to provide an accurate assessment of the likely performance and operating cost. Finally economic and environmental analyses will be carried out.

RESEARCH INTERESTS /AREAS 1) Heating/cooling/power trigeneration systems 2) Heat recovery systems 3) Thermo-economical analysis 4) Energy network integration analysis 5) Thermoelectric devices 6) Heat pipes

Background:

Engineer

Role:

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Liben Jiang

Research Fellow

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Building Services

57 <

Background:

Engineer

Role:

Research Fellow

Institute:

Building Technology Project title:

Research Activities

Group(s):

Building Services

> 58

This research project aims to investigate an advanced solardriven air-conditioning system suitable for Mediterranean climate, as shown in the top figure. The system comprises modular evacuated solar tubes coupled with an ejector-cooling device, and a cold storage booster. The system uses glass-glass sealed, evacuated tube solar collectors able to provide a substantial energy output even under extreme weather conditions, as shown in the middle figure.

These have an advantage over other types of evacuated tubes in that the vacuum is maintained between two glass tubes thus providing excellent sealing during the life-time of the tubes. The tubes are suitable for applications where aesthetics as well as efficiency are important and due to their modular

nature, the tubes are simple to install and allow scale-up of system size. The evacuated tubes could be installed on the roof of the building in order to collect solar energy. The heat from the tubes would be extracted and used to produce vapour to drive a jet refrigeration device. The system uses a new, compact ejector configuration that incorporates all the ejector components in a shell-and-tube like, heat exchanger, as shown in the bottom figure. The ejector system eliminates the need for separate heat exchangers, and allow more effective heat transfer in the evaporator as well as condenser sections of the ejector. Significant reduction of the size, weight and cost of the ejector system is therefore possible.

Other components in the system include a cold storage unit employing micro-encapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) slurries, in addition to an air handling unit which could be integrated into the existing airconditioning system. MEPCM slurries have the advantage that they could be used as a combined heat transport and storage medium, and therefore provide improved continuity of cooling supply.

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The work programme involves design optimisation and evaluation of laboratory-scale components of the system , development of a parametric computer model for system performance analysis, investigation of a buildingintegration solar tube arrangement and construction and evaluation of a full-scale prototype system. ������������������������������

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Xiaoli Ma

The urban style of living in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries has changed significantly over recent decades and this has been accompanied by a massive increase in the use of electrical energy to maintain comfort. Air conditioning equipment is one of the main energy consumers in this region, often viewed as necessary as the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries are subject to high levels of solar insolation.

Using mechanical means to provide relief from the heat means that the region’s electricity supply system is very vulnerable excessive demand.

Huge investment in the electricity generation infrastructure will be required, if energy demand continues to rise.

St Francis of Assisi School

How Can We Design Schools As Better Learning Spaces and To Encourage Sustainable Behaviour?

Co-Design Methodologies and Sustainable Communities ESRC Interdisciplinary Early Career Fellowship Amount of award 231844.29

Abstract This interdisciplinary project combines research in architecture, environmental studies, educational science and public policy to explore how schools can provide better learning environments and encourage sustainable behaviour.

The project looks in detail at participation methodologies as a means to achieve these aims, and examines the influence of cultural and societal attitudes towards sustainable lifestyles and sustainable technologies. The are many current initiatives suggesting that participation is key to sustainability and that involving users will establish schools that are not only better learning environments but more inclusive environments, in this way supporting the move towards sustainable communities. However, the link is complex and the research sets out to evaluate both the proposed benefits and the limitations of child centered participation methodologies

used in the design of learning environments, through literature, case study and through a series of interviews, exercises and research projects with children.

The research addresses a key strategic gap within the current portfolio of the Research Council Energy programme and is informed by research within the Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy initiative. Its focus however is the specific problem of determining how children and young peoples attitudies are limiting the transition to a sustainable energy economy.

The research is thus relevant, innovate and truly interdisciplinary and is supported by the School of Education.

Background:

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Andrea Wheeler

BA, Dip Arch, MPhil (Oxford Brookes), PhD (Nottm) Role:

ESRC Interdisciplinary Research Fellow Institute:

Architecture & School of Education Project title:

Sustainability and Schools

Group(s):

Architectural Humanities

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Working with Industry The School of the Built Environment has an international reputation for interdisciplinary research and collaboration with industry. A full-time Industrial & Research Liaison Manager works to maintain and develop the School’s links with architectural and engineering practice and the construction industry, as well as promoting knowledge and technology transfer. This work is exemplified by a number of recent initiatives, including: the Energy Dwellings Research Programme begun in 2006; a Platform Grant from the EPSRC; and a Faraday Partnership in the Integration of New and Renewable Energy in Buildings (INREB) funded by the DTI/EPSRC. Overall, within the current RAE period staff at the School have: Attracted upwards of £5 million of external research awards and a further £3 million for infrastructure.

Obtained over 100 grants from the UK Research Councils, industry, government bodies and the EU. Secured 5 industrially sponsored lectureships and 19 research studentships.

The School has a strong track record in technology transfer, product development and licensing and has built up an extensive portfolio of patents for technical innovations

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developed through research collaboration with industry. Notable recent industrial projects include: Building Services Environmental Energy Assessment (Hurley Palmer Flatt Ltd) Future Energy Use in Heating the Home (Baxi Ltd) Exemplar Schools: Prediction and Performance (Gifford Engineering Ltd) Novel Ejector Refrigeration/CHP System (BRE) Hybrid Ventilation Concept (NuAire Ltd) Renewable Energy Integration into an Airport Environment (East Midlands Airport) Urban Wind Turbines (EoN Power Technologies) Building Indoor Environmental QA (Hoare Lee Associates) Computer Integrated Design and Manufacture of Facades (WhitbyBird Ltd) Geothermal Heat Pump System (Roger Bullivant Ltd) Advanced Heat Pipe Applications (Thermacore Europe Ltd)

Research Students, Studentships and integration of research and teaching Since the last RAE in 2001 the School has increased the number of research degrees awarded from 30 to 90. This includes a total of 27 students supported by EPSRC (CASE) and other industrial studentships.

Within the School, each research student is supported by a team of two supervisors who offer academic guidance and monitor progress. A postgraduate student advisor, reporting to the research committee, oversees the administration of students and provides an additional source of impartial advice. Training and development of research skills is promoted through a number of mechanisms.

These include a weekly seminar series involving guest speakers alongside research students presenting work-in-progress. There is also a regular symposium event bringing together related student work from different areas within the School, plus a 1-day Annual Research Conference with invited senior speakers on themes relevant to current research priorities within the School.

In 2006-07 the event was entitled Making Architecture and the Pursuit of Quality and addressed the impact of digital fabrication technologies in architecture.

The School offers a unique portfolio of taught postgraduate programmes, reflecting the range of research expertise among staff across the four Institutes. Specialist modules provide an opportunity for research to inform teaching directly, and in some cases teaching projects are also used to generate new research opportunities. All Masters students are given training in research methods and critical analysis skills and are also encouraged to continue their research to MPhil or PhD level.

In addition to the general advanced level cross-disciplinary course in architecture, the MArch in Design (Directed by Jonathan Hale), the School runs a number of specialised research-led taught postgraduate programmes in the following areas:

Building Services and Sustainable Technologies: MSc in Renewable Energy and Architecture (Directed by Dr Mohamed Gadi).

MSc in Energy Conversion and Management (Directed by Dr Matthew Hall) - Also offered at the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ningbo campus with teaching split between the UK and China.

MSc in Sustainable Building Technology (Directed by Dr Xudong Zhao) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; An international cross-institutional course that shares 50% of the credit load with one of five collaborating universities in China.

Environmental Design and Tectonics: MArch in Environmental Design (Directed by Benson Lau) MArch in Technology (Directed by Professor Michael Stacey) Urban Design: MArch in Urban Design (Directed by Prof Taner Oc) Architectural Humanities: MArch in Theory and Design (Directed Dr Laura Hanks) MA in Architecture and Critical Theory (Directed by Jonathan Hale): an interdisciplinary masters course that combines modules in Built Environment and Critical Theory/Cultural Studies.

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Research Students

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The luminous power collected by the optics is cast onto a reduced area of solar cells, thus leading to potential savings. However, there are currently certain barriers making concentrators practically non existent on the market. Although the fraction of solar cell costs decrease steadily with the concentration factor, at the same time the costs for the optical components and the tracking mechanics increase.

In the system investigated in this project, the available solar flux is concentrated by an array of lenses mounted at a fixed distance from an array of photovoltaic cells. The PV cells within the concentrator convert a portion of this energy into electric power. To maintain the conversion efficiency of the PV, the remainder of this energy must be dissipated by a cooling system. This may be accomplished by using the concentrator housing as an integral heat sink.

As part of this research mathematical and numerical modelling of heat transfer in a PV concentrator is carried out. A PV concentrator is modelled and used to investigate the phenomenon of radiation and natural convection within the system. The Discrete Ordinates method (DO) is used to solve the radiative transfer equation. The Navier-Stokes equations, describing natural convection, are solved with a segregated SIMPLE-like algorithm.

For the non-participating media, the coupling between the radiative transfer and Navier-Stokes equations is via the radiative heat exchange between the surfaces.

The differential heated cavity problem is a classic benchmark test commonly used in the process of CFD code verification and was used for this purpose in the current investigation. Although benchmark solutions can be found for both two and three dimensional discretisations, the consideration of radiation effects is mainly restricted to 2D geometries. There are also reported solutions to threedimensional problems but only taking into account radiative heat transfer.

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Deborah Adkins

Course Title:

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With the global demand to reduce carbon dioxide emission, PV technology is gaining popularity as a mainstream form of electricity generation. Some tens of thousands of systems are currently in use yet this number is insignificant compared with the vast potential that exists for PV as an energy source. PV concentrators have repeatedly been found to be a promising path for price reduction in solar energy conversion. The potential price reduction is mainly due to replacing expensive solar cells with low cost optical components, ie, Fresnel lenses or mirrors.

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title: ����������������������

Numerical Modelling of a PV Solar Concentrator 1st Supervisor:

The benefits of enhanced heat transfer have been demonstrated in many experimental and numerical investigations, but rarely with specific application to PV concentrators. While a wide variety of enhancement techniques are available for designing improved photovoltaic concentrators, passive cooling techniques are favoured due to their relative simplicity and low cost.

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. Y Yan, 0.5

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Christian Barteczko-Hibbert

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Neural networks for prediction of Energy Use 1st Supervisor:

Dr Mark Gillott, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Professor G. Kendall, 0.5

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Realistic prediction of energy consumption accounting for occupancy behaviour and introducing a contribution from renewable energy required an alternative approach.

In order to predict energy consumption an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used. ANNs represent a type of “black box” approach to modelling and are used in prediction and forecasting. ANNs mimic the learning process of a human brain and learn with time the key information patterns within a multidimensional information domain characterised by an input and target vector. We can therefore say that an ANN approximates any non linear function arbitrary well.

The first approach was to formulate and design a building energy questionnaire for home occupiers to complete and then assess each individual’s energy consumption based on the level of information gained. Because the questionnaire cannot incorporate measured water usage without monitoring each home rigorously the second approach was to build an experimental apparatus that tests heating and hot water use over many random scenarios. ���������������������������������������

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Owing to the structure of the multilayer feed forward ANN shown in the top figure, back-propagation was employed as the learning algorithm. This back-propagates the error from the target to the hidden neurons updating both layers of weights until some satisfactory error is produced. The middle figure illustrates the error reduction process of the weights over the training of the ANN, known as the gradient descent algorithm.

Five different scenario types were generated through a ‘pseudo’ random number generator program incorporating discrete heating and hot water draw-off points.

The data generated were used as the input to the ANN as well as tank size, occupancy types and useful solar energy input.

The bottom figure illustrates the system set up. During the experiment, the solar collector was placed outside but is pictured here as it details the entire system. The configuration shown was used to determine the system working efficiency.

The rig was used to develop a prediction tool to use alongside the static ANN for home energy consumption. The process of obtaining data is on going, but once completed, both models will be combined to undertake the prediction of a dwelling’s energy demand in a more detailed manner than the current models on the market.

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Domestic hot water (DHW) and space heating (SH) account for approximately 80% of energy used in UK dwellings. Predicting the space heating and hot water consumption for dwellings in the UK is achieved at the moment using building models that rely upon building physics. However, this does not take account of occupancy trends and scenario patterns.

This project is using briquetting to convert crop residues into viable alternatives to firewood. These are often available in vast quantities in rural economies and many represent waste streams. Difficulty of disposal and the increasingly common practice of having to pay for their removal means that there is value in finding useful applications for residues.

One such application is their conversion into fuels for use in stoves. While unsuitable as fuels in their raw state, crop residues can be rendered useful by the briquetting process. Done appropriately, this strategy offers a source of local income generation and reduces the need to search for firewood. A case study based in Ghana will be used to develop the research with a key aim of identifying generic approaches that are transferable to other countries.

Parallel work will take place on stove development, identifying approaches for providing village stoves that employ local skills and materials to design and build alternatives to the ubiquitous but inefficient and polluting three stone fire.

Joel Chaney

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

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Biomass is widely used in developing countries for domestic applications. Wood is the predominant fuel and in some areas high demand is leading to deforestation. This problem is exacerbated by the inefficient stoves in which the fuel is usually burned. In addition they produce lots of smoke, impacting on the health of those in the vicinity, usually the women and children.

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Briquetting of Biomass Residues 1st Supervisor:

Dr Robin Wilson, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr MJ. Clifford, 0.5

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This research seeks to develop a 2KWel-Biomass Organic Rankine Cycle Power System. The organic Rankine cycle is a thermodynamic cycle used to generate electricity in many power stations and is the real world approach to the Carnot Cycle.

It employs an organic fluid instead of water as a working fluid. The system configuration comprises a Multi-Vane Expander (MVE) that operates the thermodynamic Rankine cycle. A Biomass boiler raises about 120 degrees Celsius hot water in a double loop cycle where the refrigerant, HFE7100 is completely vapourised in a generator. The saturated vapour at constant pressure is expanded in the prime mover (MVE) to produce mechanical power that is converted to electricity in the generator. The exhausted steam at a lower temperature and pressure is condensed and the liquid is pumped back into the system.

The use of biomass as a renewable source of energy is predicated on the fact that biomass is regarded as carbon neutral, in that the CO2 taken in by plants is the same as that exhausted during combustion or if there were allowed to decay naturally. Essentially the use of biomass for energy is the reversal of photosynthesis; -

reduction in air pollution, forest fires by forest thinning and reduced use of landfills. Economic and social benefits also accrue through creation of jobs. The choice of the MVE is based on the fact that they do better than conventional turbines when it comes to utilising low grade heat from sources like biomass, waste heat from power plants and solar collectors. The MVE is actually a positive displacement machine that uses an eccentric rotor placed within a cylinder. The rotor has slots along its length with each having a vane.

The vanes are thrown outwards by centrifugal force when running with the vanes moving in and out of the slots as the rotor is eccentric to the casing. The vanes sweep the cylinder, sucking in the fluid in on one side and ejecting it on the other. This produces work or mechanical energy on the shaft which is then converted to electricity.

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

2 KW Biomass (ORC) Electricity Generation 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. X. Zhao, 0.5

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CO2+2H2O light /heat ( [CH2O] + H2O) +O2 Biomass holds a bright future as a renewable as well as an alternative source of energy as its carbon dioxide emissions are significantly lower than that of fossil fuels.

Biomass holds potential as a future energy resource as it represents 8 times the total annual world energy consumption from all sources and only 7% of estimated annual production is currently used globally .The use of biomass has many advantages;

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Ferdinand F.O. Daminabo

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1.1 The project: The proposed system comprises wind catcher cooperated with psychrometric energy core (PEC) cooling system. The intake air pass through the wind catcher on the top of the building and flows through the PEC unit supplying the cooled fresh air into the building.

The general aims of the research: To Supply clear and fresh cooled air using renewable energy technologies.

To reduce the concentration of CO2 inside the building especially in the crowded building such as library, cinema and hospital where there are many people.

Wind cowl associated with (PEC) cooling can save huge energy compared to the traditional air ventilation methods.

Increase the awareness of energy efficiency to minimise the consumption of non-renewable energy.

1.2 Research objective The main objectives of the research are to build a prototype of wind catcher – PEC cooling system to generate good natural ventilation to reduce the buildings cooling load consumption.

Another objective is to use computational fluid dynamic (CFD) to assess the performance of the system by studying the air flow in and around the building to provide details of airflow velocity distribution and thermal condition.

1.3 Scope of the research: The research included a review of the literature review and the principals of wind cowl/catchers systems.

Experimental work has been carried out to establish information using different configuration of different sizes PEC cooling units at different conditions.

Based on the literature findings, the results of the PEC experiments would help incorporated the dehumidification system.

The dehumidification system would be based on liquid desiccant dehumidification process. The addition of the dehumidification unit, which also implies the addition of a regenerator unit, means that the system can operate in humid condition - all season at more location around the world.

This would entail thermal and fluid flow analysis to optimise heat transfer and fresh air flow.

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Abdalla Elizaidabi

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

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Advanced Desiccant PEC Wind Catcher Ventilation and Cooling System

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title: ��������������������������������������

Desiccant PEC Wind Catcher Cool System 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. S. Omer, 0.5

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67 <

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

“THE 50% BUILDING” ASSESSING RENEWABLES IMPLEMENTATION FOR DIFFERENT UK BUILDING VARIANT TYPES REDUCING THE CARBON EMISSIONS PRODUCED BY BUILDINGS BY 50% BY THE YEAR 2030

Project Title:

The 50% Building 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. L Shao, 0.5

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‘In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.’

-Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 5 B.C. – A.D. 65)

According to the Kyoto Agreement and the U.K. Government's Energy White Paper, climate change is one of the world’s greatest threats. It is only through the adoption of a sustainable approach to design, reducing our dependence on everdepleting fossil fuel resources, responsible for the creation of harmful greenhouse gases, that we can ensure a sustainable future for generations to come. As a responsible society we must ensure that we look after the planet we live on. Fossil fuels will run out, the rain forests are depleting at a rate, greater than the rate of replenishment and climate change plagues our world with a menace of monumental proportions.

The majority of buildings that are already built will still be operating in the next 30 years. While many focus on designing new green efficient buildings, the existing building stock is too commonly ignored. The majority of existing buildings are inefficient, creating huge amounts of C02 emissions during their life-time. My research project aims to assess the implementation of renewable energy technologies for different UK building variant types ranging from domestic to offices and schools.

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Caroline Fox

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Light fulfils a fundamental need of humans and many other life forms.

Using daylighting in buildings goes beyond improving the visual environment to improving human health, increasing user productivity, reducing operating and life cycle costs, maintaining sustainable development and avoiding or reducing the use of non-renewable energy.

The objective of the research is to explore the effect that strategies involving changes to ceiling geometry could have on enhancing the performance of daylighting components such as lightshelves, louvers and laser cut panels.

The research uses physical model experiments to explore different ceiling geometries used in conjunction with light shelves, louvers and laser cut panels under real sky conditions. The results from these experiments are used to verify Radiance models used to explore and optimize the performance of the proposed strategies.

Course Title:

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Ahmed Freewan

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Innovative Daylighting Systems 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Wilson, 0.5

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thermal Energy system Objective of the research:

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Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Thermal Energy Materials and System Optimisations

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1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. M. Gillott, 0.5

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Mahmoud Muhammad Garba

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Ehab Kamel

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Sciences)

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In a culturally rich landscape whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and human factors, it becomes essential to ‘de-code’ and critically interpret the environment as the first stage in any architectural, urban or landscape design intervention. This research project – begun in 2007 aims to explore and develop new methods of interpreting culturally rich historical sites, in order to produce new creative approaches for architectural, urban or landscape design projects. The research is based on the proposition that any new intervention in a sensitive historic location – such as a World Heritage Site – should be well integrated with the place, responsive to its cultural heritage and yet dynamic in exploring new spatial, social and cultural possibilities.

The thesis will be focused around a series of carefully chosen casestudies of projects recently built or currently proposed within World Heritage Sites, such as:

Course Status:

- Stonehenge and city of Bath in the UK. - The Pyramids and Luxor city in Egypt.

- The banks of the River Seine in Paris.

Decoding Cultural Landscapes of Heritage Sites

By employing a variety of Phenomenological methods of analysis, the Study aims to analyze the key design factors taken into consideration in each example in the attempt to integrate the new intervention with its surroundings.

The ultimate objective is to develop a series of design criteria which will be tested at the end of the project.

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

1st Supervisor:

Mr Jonathan Hale, 0.5

Dr. Laura Hanks, 0.5

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Renewable ventilation systems seek to provide low energy ventilation in buildings. This project is funded by the EPSRC and a private company, Nuaire, based near Cardiff, Wales.

Nuaire specialises in industrial and domestic fans and have a large design and manufacturing plant aptly suited to partner with the University of Nottingham. They have a growing interest in renewable systems as demonstrated by their award winning Sunwarm system that uses solar thermal collectors to provide hot water and ventilation.

Generally renewable ventilation consists of any means of providing ventilation which has a renewable element to it, for example a DC fan powered by solar PV would qualify.

A more novel approach is the Vertical Axis Wind Extractor pictured in the leftmost figure above. This uses a wind turbine to drive an axial fan that extracts air from the building.

The design principle in this project is based on the rotating turbine ventilator shown in the central figure. It is a combination of a wind turbine and a backward curved centrifugal fan. The free wind rotates the turbine creating a negative pressure and hence suction effect. This in turn extracts air from the roof, providing ventilation. Turbine ventilators are extremely popular in warmer countries such as Australia and Thailand. They are primarily used to extract hot attic air in summer and hence reduce the cooling load in the house as shown in the rightmost figure. Currently the market for turbine ventilators in the UK is underdeveloped, thus presenting an opportunity for exploitation. This project has designed and built a unique test rig to evaluate commercial turbine ventilators and use the data to feedback into new designs of building ventilators.

Building ventilation is directed by strict regulations. It is envisaged that in the near future these regulations will come to encompass low energy and even zero energy ventilation systems. This project represents a step towards this goal.

In summary this project aims to experimentally and theoretically evaluate rotary turbine ventilators for building applications.

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title:

Renewable Ventilation Systems 1st Supervisor:

Dr D. Etheridge, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. Y Su, 0.5

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Naghman Khan

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Objectives of this research project

deformation capacity and architectural potential). A numerical model has been constructed that allows exploration of the influence that deformation of the structure has on solar performance of the building. In parallel, a parametriccontrolled computer model has been generated using the Bentley GC (Generative Component), which can be implemented to validate the numerical model.

to calculate solar performance under the simulated Clear Sky condition for different latitudes and orientation.

Course Title:

6. To Evaluate and compare the precision and performance of different simulation tools (such as ECOTECT and ESP-r).

Course Status:

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1 To acquire understanding of the importance of building envelopes in terms of energy efficiency and to analyse existing inconsistencies and uncertainties in terms of exploiting their design. An extensive literature review has been carried out exploring solar control using chemical, physical and mechanical properties of the building envelope.

2 To develop a method for designing kinetic building envelopes that alter their mechanical properties to improve solar control. A series of folding patterns has been developed through studying folding phenomena present in nature. Three bio-mimetic research methods have been employed: i) Top to Bottom ii) Bottom-Up iii) Integrative approach 3 To study the geometric characteristics of deployable origami structures (including their

4. To facilitate the comparison of the solar performance of different origami structures: a numerical model of Clear Sky Solar Radiation has been developed.

5. To explore the relationship between the deformation ability of deployable origami structures and their solar performance: the computer model of origami patterns and the data from the Clear Sky Solar Radiation Model have been imported into ECOTECT and ESP-r

7. To explore climate responsive building envelope strategies and principles related to solar performance. This is to demonstrate the ability of bioclimatic building envelopes to improve building energy efficiency.

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Chunxiao Lu

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

The Solar Performance of Origami Structures

Publications:

1st Supervisor:

Lu, Chunxiao and Gadi, Mohamed.

"The Numerical Model of solar Radiation of Deployable Origami Structure", Proceedings of SET2005 - 4th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies.

2005

Dr M. Gadi

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Annie Marston

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title:

Wind Turbines and ATC Primary Radar

As new technologies emerge, it is often the case that unexpected problems creep in with them. In the case of wind turbines, especially wind farms, it has been found that their appearance on radar screens is very similar to that of aircraft. This has caused planning permission to be refused for many wind farms that are in the line of sight of air traffic control radar.

This problem was first noticed in the UK but in recent times America and Mainland Europe have begun to notice the effect that wind turbines have on ATC radar. My research is focusing on a solution to this problem. Currently there are a few solutions being tested both at the turbine end and at the radar end however, there is call for as many solutions as possible as the problem seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

I am concentrating my research at the turbine end of the problem. It is more likely that the wind farms and turbine manufactures will have to solve this issue than the airports themselves. This is mainly due to the airports having the say over whether planning permission is granted for the wind farms.

Although there are solutions for radar additions to block the wind turbine signal, the incentive for an airport to purchase this expensive equipment is fairly small.

My research has been divided into two distinct sections: Firstly I am looking into electromagnetic compatibility, a new subject to me; secondly I will be using the software called Fluent to test the wind patterns around the wind turbine.

The electromagnetic compatibility component of the research should allow me to find a way to make the turbine invisible to radar. The fluent component will allow me to see what effects my solution has on the wind turbines themselves.

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1st Supervisor:

Dr. S. Omer, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. M. Hall, 0.5

> 74

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My PhD research focuses on the problems created by wind turbines on primary air traffic control radar.

The work is sponsored by EPRSC and Nottingham East Midlands Airport.

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Environmental Design: Space as a Medium

less important is the definition of the role of environmental design.

This research addresses two issues concerning space conception in the studio. On the one hand the growing estrangement between students of architecture and environment - perhaps a confirmatory sample of the documented men/world disconnection- and on the other hand the notion of space that currently enlightens the design studio.

Though environmental issues seem to have an advantage for they have been directly experienced by the students they seem to be encapsulated aside and replaced by an ‘ocularcentric’ and ‘conceptual’ approaches during students’ initiation. Triggers for creativity are expected to be found among states of mind, feelings, impressions or poetic metaphors, and on the odd occasion in the physical quality of the atmosphere that people will be offered to visit or live in.

Additionally, Gibson’s assertion that atmosphere is a Medium that we call ‘space’, offers a key reference for this exploration, from which we could speculate that a place could be a space with a memorable atmosphere and consequently ask whether the making of this atmosphere is a function of Environmental Design as a fundamental matter within the studio.

Concerning the first issue, a number of authors agree that younger generations of students look to be inclined to surrogate genuine experience for the flattening action of information technology. As a result, the corporeal relation between the senses and stimuli has become impoverished, possibly affecting the way they imagine space.

In this circumstance the ethos from which the design studio approaches the space becomes crucial, and not

From a pedagogic point of view Experiential Learning defined as ‘The sense-making process of active engagement between the inner world of the person and the outer world of the environment’ (Beard, Colin et al.) appears as a suitable tool to deal with the mentioned problems.

An assenting answer to this question would refloat the paradigmatic idea that studio and environmental design are one and the same, creating a notable pedagogical chance to approach the space from an experiential standpoint, where all the senses play a role, rather than the currently ocularcentric one. Such relation becomes a fundamental issue not only in the quest of technical knowledge, but what is more important, in the recovery of a deep meaning of space for human beings.

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Sciences)

Course Status:

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Ricardo Martinez

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Environmental Design: Space as a Medium 1st Supervisor:

Dr P. Rutherford, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Mr B. Lau, 0.5

75 <

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Having as context heritage conservation, the research discusses assimilation as the process that thrusts receptors to accept transformations in valuable environments. This implies that architecture be recognised as a bearer of relevant values: memories and recollection triggers especially.

This architectural phenomenon is constituted by historical assimilation of places and times in a continuous overlapping of architectural strata.

Therefore the first aim is to propose an ontology of culturally significant architecture. Architecture is described as an object with different possibilities of concretizations and a layered ontological structure. A second aim is to correlate this ontology of architecture as a being in time with the modes of being proposed by Roman Ingarden and with memory as consciousness of time. The last intention is to argue that consideration about memory should determine

theories of conservation, especially in light of the capacity of collective memory to be adapted to new conditions. The case used to make a critical exploration is Cesare Brandi’s Theory of Restoration.

bracket the essence of assimilation and for the second and third layer – ‘positive theory’ and philosophies – the hermeneutical approach is selected. Architecture is not only meaning, not only function, and not only form. It is a manifold of entities, some of them anchored in the same physical and material whole, but others constructed from the individual and collective consciousness. Among these there are aesthetic values, memories, symbols, and so forth. If conservation intends to deal with them, it needs to understand their nature. As spectators with a life limited between birth and death, the decaying of architecture shows us the passing of time and some of its effects. It works as memory of the past, but importantly, also as constant reminder of our future: a naturally limited human future.

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Sciences)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Architecture, Time and Memory in Conservation 1st Supervisor:

Dr L. Hanks, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Mr. R. Quek, 0.5

> 76

The first layer in which the problem is divided is constituted by the architectural phenomenon of assimilation of new architecture. It carries particularities related with the nature of architecture as entity and its relation with the human been. The second layer is constituted by architectural conservation theories. This layer is called ‘positive theory’ i.e. openly, explicitly, intentional and formally expressed explanation of architectural conservation. A third layer is conformed by the philosophies as holistic explanations that support theories.

The methodology proposed to explore the first layer is the development of a phenomenological ontology of architecture, trying to

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Fidel Alejandro Meraz Avila

The choice of renewable energy source depends highly on location and the input will often be unpredictable and fluctuating. In addition, the energy density of renewables is far lower than that of fossil fuels. These features mean that renewable energy systems typically require backup energy supply. To increase the benefits of renewables, systems require flexibility in combining energy sources. In addition, there is a necessity to store energy when supply exceeds immediate demand and ideally offer systems that rely on off-the-shelf components.

This project explores a new system that meets all of these criteria.

Several kinds of renewables are combined in the system allowing it to harness different renewable energy sources as they become available. Excess energy is stored in the form of heat in an underground water tank providing storage to bridge the gap between supply and demand. The low grade energy is utilised by adjusting its temperature through the use of heat pumps.

Finally, the system is built using commercially available components, such as the rainwater tank shown in the bottom figure, to minimize the investment costs.

The design will be optimized through experiments and simulation. To date, the use of rainwater as a thermal energy source has not been explored in much depth and this research seeks to identify an effective design to maximize the benefits of the proposed system. As a first step, a sensitivity analysis has been carried out using the computational fluid dynamics software FLUENT as shown in the top figure.

Experimental data will be collected from a prototype system operating on a test house at the School of the Built Environment.

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Hiromi Mori

Course Title:

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Commitments made in response to the Kyoto protocol to reducing CO2 emissions have encouraged the use of renewable energy. However, the new technologies and the unique characteristics of renewables often mean it costs users more to install them than conventional systems. As a result, their uptake has not yet been as sufficient to meet target figures for CO2 reduction. Countries where renewables have been widely adopted have introduced strict regulations governing energy use and offered national grants to provide incentives for installation.

This research project intends to investigate economically feasible methods to use renewables, in order to make uptake of these technologies more independent of financial support.

IBT/ISET (Social Sciences)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title: ��������������������������

Heat Pump system with Rainwater Collection 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. Y Su, 0.5

77 <

Course Title:

Architecture (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Tall Building Technologies 1st Supervisor:

Mr A. Wood, 0.75 2nd Supervisor:

Professor B. Ford, 0.25

> 78

Project Description The project, sponsored by Ove Arup Ltd, will create a state-of-the-art hypothetical tall building which will embody all emerging technologies across divergent fields. The building, through the choice of materials / systems and the incorporation of energy creation within its fabric, will aim for a minimum standard to be carbonneutral.

The following technologies, amongst many others, will be embraced: 1. Structural Systems – embracing structural efficiency and issues arising from post 9/11 including increased structural ductility and building robustness, structural redundancy and prevention of progressive collapse.

2. Passive Ventilation – studying ‘large-scale’ internal opportunities for natural ventilation as well as ‘external’ opportunities through wind pressure differentials, wind scoops etc.

3. Façade Technologies – assessing the real potential of double-skin facades for environmental control, passive/hybrid ventilation, energy collection, solar control etc.

4. Energy generation – assessing the potential of the tall building for energy creation through harnessing of wind power, solar energy, waste / water recycling etc. Also minimising building energy consumption through passive solar heat gain and natural lighting.

5. Architectural issues incorporating the latest in thinking for building form, layout and orientation.

6. Internal Transport – assessing the latest thinking in lift technologies – including double/ triple-decker, lifts that move shafts etc.

7. Safety – improved evacuation efficiency (including simultaneous evacuation) through use of elevators, exterior envelope systems, skybridges etc.

8. Services – assessing service requirements for new technologies including multiple service routes for emergency situations.

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Philip Francis Oldfield

Project Abstract There have been major advancements in the field of tall buildings in recent years, many induced by the events of 9-11 and the World Trade Centre towers’ collapse. Tall Buildings are being built which increasingly push the limits of structural design, environmental systems, façade technologies, internal transport systems etc. However many people remained unconvinced as to the suitability of the tall building as a viable typology in our urban fabric, especially when the increased embodied energies of construction, energy in operation and long–term maintenance costs are taken into account. Further, many of the advancements in specific tall building disciplines are being considered in isolation from other fields – there has been very little research conducted that looks at the combined effects of the emerging technologies holistically.

This project seeks to counteract that, by considering not only the state-of-the-art in each specific technological discipline, but the combined effects of these technologies on each other.

As a response to an existing crisis in housing supply, the government is committed to promote the use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) in home building to achieve a better balance between housing availability and demand. Whatever the construction form or material, MMC has the potential to produce very energy efficient dwellings.

However, the energy efficiency of the finished dwelling depends heavily on good design and appropriate material specification.

MMC is relatively new to the UK and its characteristics are currently being investigated in order to identify good practice, promote its wider use and encourage further development. The University of Nottingham, through the Creative Energy Homes project at the School of the Built Environment, aims to stimulate sustainable design ideas using MMC and promote new ways of providing affordable, environmentally sustainable housing that are innovative in their design.

The Stoneguard C60 Research House is the first dwelling being built as part of the project. It is a steel frame house that will be highly insulated and airtight. A major feature of the house is the integrated sunspace that aims to provide passive solar heating and high levels of daylight whilst being a pleasant liveable space.

Whilst the design offers high levels of environmental performance and can significantly reduce energy consumption when compared with conventionally built homes, the arrangement is likely to present overheating during the summer as the light structure has low thermal mass. My work aims to address this problem and offer innovative solutions. It concentrates on improving the building’s mass by two means: 1. Ground mass: extend the use of the earth’s thermal mass by incorporating Earth-Air Heat Exchangers (EAHE). An EAHE system was proposed and built. The energy efficient passive system is designed to thermally condition the air entering the sunspace by passing it through pipes buried beneath the ground. Tests carried out on site have shown that the as-built system, although different from the initial proposal, is effective.

2. Material mass: incorporation of Phase Change Materials (PCM) in the building’s internal finishes. The use of PCMs in the form of waxes enclosed in microscopic polymer capsules is being studied. The wax in the capsules melts and solidifies absorbing and realising heat to regulate the environment’s temperature using latent heat storage.

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Lucelia Taranto Rodriguez

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A STUDY OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF INDOOR THERMAL COMFORT OF LIGHT DRY ASSEMBLED HOUSE ENVELOPES BY INCREASING THE BUILDING’S THERMAL MASS

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title: �����������������������������

Thermal Comfort of MMC Houses 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Those solutions and their integration are being studied using computer modelling, laboratory tests and on site measurements.

After the house’s completion the simulation data will be validated against the collected data.

Dr. M. Gillott, 0.5

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79 <

Thomas Rogers

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title:

Urban Wind Energy 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. S. Omer, 0.5

> 80

• Assessment of wind regimes in the urban environment, • Assessment of the structural implications of BUWTs, • Optimisation of wind turbine design for BUWT installations.

The aim of this project is to investigate these issues with a mind to increasing the knowledge base of BUWTs and consequently their successful progression towards a more safe, reliable and efficient means of micro-generation.

The term ‘built environment’ encompasses a wide variety of building shapes both for domestic architecture (terraced, semidetached, tower blocks, etc) and commercial architecture (city

centres, industrial estates, business parks, etc). An assessment of wind regimes close to these structures will be explored through computational fluid dynamic (CFD) studies, the use of existing empirical data from operational wind turbines sited in an urban environment, and existing academic research data on wind flow around bluff bodies.

The structural implications of wind turbines mounted onto buildings are extensive and are an area of concern for the various sectors of the market. The different combinations of attachment methods will be explored and their affects examined. Structural implications are of increased concern where a turbine is mounted in the built environment as turbulence and wind shear will mean increased dynamic loading. A detailed investigation will be performed into noise generated during operation and urban background noise.

Until now, most turbine design in the UK has been centred on a traditional horizontal axis blade arrangement. Other turbine designs may be better suited to operation in an urban wind environment. These designs include enhanced/ducted flow turbines, cross-flow turbines and vertical axis turbines.

Innovative blade designs may also improve the operation of horizontal axis machines.

As part of the project, two commercially available wind turbines will be installed and monitored; one on the School's wind monitoring platform, the other on a residential property. During their operation several parameters will be logged including; meteorological data, turbine power out, inverter power out, noise emissions, vibration, etc. These data will be analysed and compared with theoretical data.

The project is being funded by the EPSRC and E-ON.

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Course Title:

Building Mounted/Integrated Wind Turbines (BUWTs) are a relatively new addition to the microgeneration market. Their application in the built environment has not yet been fully exploited owing to a lack of research in the following areas:

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operated independently of the grid if there is a black out.

Currently, micro-scale CHP systems are undergoing rapid development, and are emerging on the market with promising prospects for the future. There are a number of micro-scale CHPs on demonstration in the UK, such as WhisperGen CHP, Sener Tech DACHS CHP, and Ecopower CHP, all of which run on fossil fuels. The rising prices of gas and electricity, and the compelling evidence that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel utilisation have led many domestic and commercial energy users to consider using biomass to meet their energy needs of heating and electricity. However, micro-scale biomass-fuelled power generators or CHP units with a size in the order of 1-10kW electricity are not commercially available anywhere in the world. Therefore, there is an

urgent need to develop efficient and reliable micro-scale CHP systems.

The present research project aims to develop an integrated biomassfuelled micro-scale CHP/cooling system that can be applied to light commercial, office, domestic buildings and other sectors such as agricultural and farming industry.

Specific objectives are to design and test the main system components (a biomass boiler, an Organic Rankine micro-turbine and a flue gas waste heat-driven desiccant cooling unit) in the laboratory, and to model and optimise the performance of the integrated system via computer modelling and field testing.

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Jingjuan Shao Combined heat and power (CHP) generation or cogeneration has been considered worldwide as the major alternative to traditional systems in terms of significant energy saving and environmental conservation. Micro-scale CHP systems are particularly suitable for applications in light commercial, institutional buildings, such as hospitals, schools, industrial premises, office building blocks, and domestic buildings containing single or multifamily dwellings. Microscale CHP systems can help to meet a number of energy and social policy aims, including the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, improved energy security, investment saving resulting from the omission of the electricity transmission and distribution network, and the potentially reduced energy cost to consumers.

A micro-scale CHP system is also able to provide a higher degree of reliability since the system can be

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Development of Biomass fuelled CHP/Cooling System 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. H. Liu, 0.5

81 <

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Categorising Buildings for Energy Assesment 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. S. Wu, 0.5

> 82

In the UK buildings are responsible for 40% of the country's total CO2 emissions. Since 1985 the energy efficiency of buildings has been regulated to conserve fuel and reduce CO2 emissions. In the UK, as well as other OECD countries, new buildings make up a small percentage of the building stock. To significantly reduce the CO2 emissions of a developed building stock, retrofitting low carbon energy technologies is considered necessary.

Before identifying suitable low carbon solutions, understanding the current energy demands of a building can help identify the energy and CO2 savings available to a building, in order to conform to modern expectations. Modelling buildings for energy use is a popular method to justify the need and quantify the benefit of integrating energy saving measures and technologies.

Carrying out an energy audit on a building, combined with building specific modelling will provide an accurate assessment of energy use.

The work involved in such a procedure requires a high level of skill and understanding of building energy concerns. Time scales, combined with skill levels make this an expensive process that will inhibit its uptake.

Simplified energy assessment procedures have been developed.

The resulting modelling tools are based on energy audits of sample buildings. The collated data are used for assessing comparable buildings. The accuracy of these simplified energy models is therefore dependent on the detail given to categorising building types.

For commercial property, thermal control is responsible for between 50% and 60% of total building energy demands. Building structure strongly influences the energy required to provide thermal comfort to building occupants. Prior to 1985 in the UK building control did not consider the thermal performance of buildings, but focused on structural integrity.

Identifying age of commercial buildings is argued as a relatively simple method of categorisation.

Building regulations and laws in force at the time of construction can be used to identify structural type. This project is investigating the potential improvement to simplified energy assessment modelling that can be made by categorising buildings according to age through the study of historical building regulations and laws.

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Stefan Smith

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Abstract: The traditional Chinese dwelling has been influenced by traditional Chinese philosophies and theories. This research is try to explore the philosophies and theories, and explore how they have influenced the 'Ideal Dwelling' concept and the traditional ‘TimeSpace’ concept in design of ‘Grouped Buildings’. It is try to explain the reasons and conditions behind the successful traditional dwelling forms and structures, which could inspire on contemporary urban spatial design for urban dwellings.

With a long history, the traditional Chinese dwelling form and spatial structure have been influenced by Chinese philosophies and theories, such as ‘Yi Jing’ , ‘Harmony’, ‘Harmony between man and nature’, Feng Shui Theory and so on. They inherited the fine spirit of the traditional Chinese culture. The research focuses on the concept of ‘The Ideal Dwelling Place’ from time to time in different situation and social background. It researches from both physical and psychological, material and spiritual aspects to explain the environmental characteristics of perfect dwelling place, from choosing site location, planning grouped buildings, and fundamental principles and so on. It explores the concept of ‘Ideal Dwelling’ and concept of ‘TimeSpace’. It answers the reasons and conditions of successful historical dwelling form.

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The research related to the most affective traditional philosophies and theories, such as Yi Jing, Tian Ren He Yi, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism etc and Feng Shui Theory, YinYang Theory, Wu Xing Theory and Ba Gua Theory etc.

Through background research, evolution and development of these philosophies and theories, it analyses how these philosophies and theories influenced Chinese traditional ideal dwelling concept and forms. During different periods, especially the end of feudal society, how historical dwelling idea, spatial concept and dwelling form and structure had been influenced.

Through the case study in Mainland China, it expects to find the essential reasons of emerging same or different type of ideal dwelling environment and buildings under different background in different areas at different time. It explores how local architecture and grouped buildings design have developed theirs own characteristics of spatial forms and structures under the same essential and common principles, which satisfied people’s requirement of ideal dwelling at that time. It compares with contemporary urban design theory, principles and people’s need, tries to summarise and raise a new sustainable appropriate urban dwelling theory – “ChangedBalanced-Adapted Urban Dwelling Theory’.

Yue Tang

Course Title:

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‘The Ideal Dwelling Place’ – Inspiration and Illumination of Traditional Chinese Dwelling

Architecture )Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

The Ideal Dwelling Place 1st Supervisor:

Professor T. Oc, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Professor T. Heath, 0.5

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83 <

The project is funded by EPSRC and is being carried out in collaboration with Tokyo Polytechnic University (TPU) Bo Wang

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Unsteady Wind Effects on Natural Ventilation 1 Supervisor: st

Dr G. Gan, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. D. Etheridge, 0.5

> 84

Task 1. Improvement of hot-wire technique – calibration and configuration To optimize the hot-wire technique we need to know more about the characteristics of the technique under a wider range of operating conditions. The intention is to carry out unsteady calibration using a precise piston, and steady calibration using a fan across a wide range of resistance. Changes will be made to the configuration of the current hot-wire probe to find an optimized configuration. Special wires (e.g. split-fiber film) will also be tested, giving a wider range of choice.

Task 2. Widening the scope of the technique – multiple stacks, wind and buoyancy combined.

The hot-wire technique will be used to measure the interaction between two stacks to see if they give nominally equal and opposite flow reversal. In terms of wind and buoyancy combined ventilation, previous results have shown possible effects of variations in the air temperature. This will be investigated by measuring the air temperature fluctuation near the hot-wire to detect its effects.

Task 3. Measurements relating to design procedures (in collaboration with TPU) Firstly, undesirable interaction among multiple stacks will be detected by varying the geometry of the building and the stacks.

Secondly, the effects of buoyancy on stack flow will be investigated.

Increasing the buoyancy should result in hysteresis of flow reversal within the stacks. Simulation of this hysteresis phenomena is to be carried out using the hot-wire technique. Thirdly, external flow effects on discharge coefficients of ventilation openings will be studied.

Previous research has shown that Cd can be significantly reduced by the presence of crossflow. The new tests will concentrate on openings with more realistic shapes.

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Task 4. Assessment of theoretical models (in collaboration with TPU) A number of test configurations (model, openings, wind, buoyancy) will be chosen for assessment of two theoretical models (the QT model and a CFD model utilising large eddy simulation).

Task 5. Formulation and dissemination of results The results of the work will be expressed in a form that is suitable for adoption in design procedures e.g. CIBSE AM10. The underlying methodology will be to express the results in nondimensional form in order to widen their application.

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The overall objectives of this project are to investigate the unsteady wind effects on natural ventilation by experiments (hot-wire technique), to assess theoretical models and to formulate the results so as to improve design procedures for naturally ventilated buildings.

Based on the essences of built environment and structural linguistics, it can be argued that cities and architecture are languages which are endued with language’s structure and features by many scholars. In two thousand years of civilization, different built environment languages have existed, durably or ephemerally.

They constitute a profound theoretical foundation that must be reviewed carefully before further development. Because of the natural relationship between built environment languages and structuralism, the developments of both are worthy of consideration.

Through careful comparison, not only can the built environment items be deeply embeded into the linguistics theory and be explained by the linguistic terms, but also other concepts of the structuralism, semiology and its derivatives can be introduced to this new field.

Based on this theoretical background, we should therefore be optimistic about the possibility of establishing a comprehensive built environment linguistics system. To be more detailed, via the theories of structural linguistics and semiology, the whole built environment scope can be studied as an accumulation of signs firstly, but further as the "built environment langage", which includes the related "Built Environment Langue and parole".

Consequently, on the one hand, by probing the running mechanism of the built environment langue, a complex signification process can be uncovered as well. Within the signification procedure, the transformation from the signifier (E) to the signified (C) is the substance, but the potential impetus is the parole. On the other hand, according to the different functions in signification process, the parole in built environment scope can be divided into the

creating parole and perceiving parole. These items compose the basis of the built environment linguistics. However, The operations of it in real life indeed require the cooperation with the spoken and written langage.

Combining the studies about the langue and parole together, an integrated framework of the built environment langage can be established. actually from inside, it is obvious that the built environment linguistics ubiquitous in our society. As the spoken and written langage, indeed we everyone who lives in the built environment uses it in every moment.

Course Title:

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Qi Wang

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Towards Built Environment Linguistics 1st Supervisor:

Professor T. Oc, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Professor T. Heath, 0.5

85 <

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title:

Asian Modern Architecture Conservation 1st Supervisor:

Professor T. Heath, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. L Hanks, 0.5

> 86

This research seeks to explore the inherent conceptual contradiction of the conservation of non-Western post-war architecture —through a theoretical enquiry into the nature of non-Western modernism and the raison d'être of modern conservation, accompanied by an examination of case study examples in selected Asian countries. Postmodern criticisms and deep-rooted prejudices against Modernist architecture mainly rise from two facets: its malfunction in terms of social, technical, and aesthetic innovations, and its monotony that failed to serve diverse cultural interests. The paradox lies in the non-Western post-war conservation is the lack of cultural continuity of its universal modern idiom, and yet it is further complicated by

the redefinition and recognition of ‘other’ modernisms. The research begins with posing the question why those originated from abroad and once severed Asian from their cultural roots deserve recognition for their historic value and should be regarded as part of Asian ‘built heritage’. As the early post-war period was primarily characterised by the creation of new independent countries and the building of modern states, by which nonWestern modernism consolidated its ground to grow, the research particularly focuses on early postwar architecture and its relation to the formulation of national identity.

Case study examples —in Taiwan, South Korea and others with comparable historical backgrounds— centre on those bearing relation to symbols of modern states, such as capital building, housing schemes, rural hinterlands and large-scale habitats —where are the paradigmatic fields non-Western countries experimented and implemented Western modernism and urbanism and, subsequently, manifested modernity and urbanity in their own sense.

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In Asia, as well as other nonWestern countries, post-war buildings have borne the imprint of dramatic socio-political and economic transformations and consequently have been the receptacles for the corresponding socio-cultural changes and the depository of collective memories.

The ground of justification for conservation must be established, whereby the being of post-war architecture can be ensured. ���������������������������������������

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Yi-Wen Wang

It is an apparent turn in the field of conservation that relics of the recent past have begun to receive recognition and been positively valued as ‘modern heritage’. Since the conservation of Modern Movement architecture was first initiated at an international level in 1990, a number of Modernist inheritances in Western countries have been given statutory protection for their ‘historic’ value.

Parallel activities are seemingly taking place in non-Western countries in recent years, but yet the advocacy of modern conservation in the non-West in fact is out of sympathy with the post-war modern. The cultural significance of post-war buildings in non-Western contexts has hardly been identified or assessed.

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The current situation with the take up of heat pump heating systems, particularly in a domestic situation is that the installation cost in many cases is prohibitive and creates long pay back periods. Costings for borehole drilling are notoriously difficult to predict due to the varying geology. It is realised that smaller diameter boreholes can be drilled much more quickly and efficiently and in turn cost could be reduced and price prediction more accurate. Direct exchange ground loops are an obvious choice in terms of loop sizing, due to the length and diameter being much smaller than pipes used with secondary fluid systems. It is considered that a single 100m deep DX loop could replace a multiple short loop system and in turn save time and expense on ground works. A coaxial loop is to be manufactured and tested for performance and to assess any problems due to oil accumulation.

Research to date has shown that the coaxial DX loop can be manufactured and the heat pump system will operate and produce heat as predicted. System stability and low suction pressures are still to be resolved and prolonged running still has to be achieved to determine if loop oil accumulation will cause the system to fail.

One method is to extract heat energy from within the ground through the use of energy piles, whilst another method involves heat extraction from the air using the building supporting structure.

Energy piles have been installed and tested in many large buildings throughout the world. The challenge is to use such piles on residential dwellings, where land space is much more restrictive and thus the potential ground heat store is limited. In such circumstances the use of energy piles may deplete the ground of heat over a number of years and thus the heat balance must be understood. Heat regeneration of the ground by passive techniques in summer months may be the solution, or a combination of air and ground source for the heat, in order to reduce the ground heat draw. Hence, air source solutions in building support frames are worthy of investigation.

Further it is suggested that if ground loops, either using DX systems or secondary fluids, are incorporated into an 'all in one' package there will be economic benefits, which will encourage the use of such systems.

There are many unknowns to consider with regards to loop types and energy extraction rates when for example they are incorporated into foundation structures and materials. Foundation systems can be varied and a number of proposals have been made.

Course Title:

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Christopher Wood

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 2

Project Title:

Novel Heat Pump Evaporator Loop Design 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.2 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. H. Liu, 0.8

87 <

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There is wide agreement that global warming and its climatic consequences are likely to be the greatest challenge that we shall face this century. Buildings are alleged to contribute approximately one third of CO2 and two fifths of SO2 and NOx emissions globally.

Studies and experiments on PDEC undertaken to date have concentrated on its application in Europe. It is apparent, however, that this technique has the potential for application in many parts of China.

China will be one of the most important players in future international climate change negotiations. It accounts for nearly 15 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, making it second only to the United States.

In north-west China (the hot dry provinces of Sinkiang, Ganshu, Ningxia, Tibet and Qinghai), there has been a dramatic growth in air conditioning. Thus, there is huge potential for energy-saving in hot dry regions of China if PDEC can be developed to replace conventional air conditioning and reduce cooling energy consumption. This will not only help ease pressure on energy supply, but also have a positive impact on global climate.

The objective of the research is to apply and develop PDEC principles in north-west provinces of China focusing on its application to nondomestic buildings. Experiments will be carried out in these regions.

Modelling and simulation will be used to analyze the technique and assess performance. Work will be undertaken in collaboration with the Chinese government to design and construct a full-scale experimental building in a hot dry region in China. This will be configured to monitor the comfort and energy use in order to characterize the performance of particular components (supply tower, control, etc.) under real weather conditions.

Strategies for integrating the PDEC system with traditional Chinese passive cooling strategies and materials will be explored.

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

The application PDEC in China 1st Supervisor:

Professor B. Ford, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. D. Etheridge, 0.5

> 88

Emissions associated with energy used in air conditioning are now recognized as a significant factor in global warming and climate change.

The use of cooling in buildings is continuing to increase globally, especially in the hot regions of the world.

A survey of over 1000 public and commercial buildings in Greece has shown that non-air-conditioned buildings typically consume 98KWh per square meter less than their airconditioned counterparts.

Passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) is proving to be both technically and economically viable in the hot dry regions of the world.

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Huang Xuan

The proposed research project aims to develop an advanced solar-driven air-conditioning system suitable for a Mediterranean climate.

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The cooling system uses a new, compact ejector configuration that incorporates all the ejector components in a single “shell-andtube-like” heat exchanger unit. The proposed ejector device eliminates the need for separate heat exchangers, and allows more effective heat transfer in both the evaporator and the condenser sections. Significant reduction of the size, weight and cost of the ejector system should therefore be possible.

Wei Zhang

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

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The proposed system will be driven by solar energy and comprises modular evacuated solar tubes coupled with an ejector-cooling device, a cold storage booster and an air-handling unit. The solar collector tubes will provide highenergy output and consistently high performance over the whole lifespan of the system. The tubes are suitable for applications where aesthetics as well as efficiency are important, and due to their modular nature, they are simple to install and allow for scale up of system size.

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Driven Ejector Refrigeration System 1st Supervisor:

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Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. X Zhao, 0.5

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89 <

The traditional mediums of paper and pencil have been used throughout the history of architectural design. These tools helped architects to produce creative work and control the design process.

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Yan Zhu

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Full time registered, year 3

Project Title:

Using Computers to improve conceptual Design

The research is focus on how computers can help architects to improve the design quality in the early design process. In this research, the conceptual design process is classified into two aspects according to different task goals.

The first part is figurative design, which includes all tasks that deal with visible elements such as forms, shapes materials, etc. The second part is performative design, which includes tasks relating to building performance such as day lighting, shading, etc. These aspects will be analysed in terms of what has previously been done, and what could be done in the future, by computers.

A case study was also done with Nottingham based architects Marsh:Grochowski. Further case studies will also be discussed to explore the various ways of utilising computers to fulfil different design tasks. The research will aim to propose new design methodology in which computers can help to improve early design stage and design performance, whilst helping designers to control the design process more efficiently.

1st Supervisor:

Mr J. Hale, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. B. Medjoub, 0.5

> 90

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However, when people are entering a new age of information technology, the following question must be asked; “How can new digital technology aid architects?”

My work is to numerically and experimentally investigate efficient cooling technologies in narrow gap cavities around gas turbine components. The project is funded

by Siemens industrial turbomachinery Ltd., Lincoln, UK from 2006 to 2009.

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Increasing turbine inlet temperatures is one of the key technologies in raising gas turbine engine performance. The turbine inlet temperatures in advanced gas turbines are far higher than the melting point of the blade material.

So, the blades need to be cooled.

A gas turbine cooling system must be designed to minimize the use of cooling air to achieve maximum benefits of the high inlet gas temperature. Too much coolant flow results in reduced engine performance. ���������������������

Yingqing Zu

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

Course Status:

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In every gas turbine engine, there are three main components namely compressor, combustor, and turbine.

Atmospheric air is drawn into the air intake by rotating compressor blades and is compressed. A small amount of the compressed air is bled off for cooling purposes; the rest enters the combustion chambers. In the chambers, fuel enters and mixes with the compressed air. A large quantity of energy is produced by the ignition of the air fuel mixture and added to the gas. The energised gas is first deflected in the turbine section by an annular cascade of turbine nozzle guide vane stator blades and impinges onto a series of turbine rotor blades.

Full time registered, year 1

Project Title:

Efficient Gas Turbine Cooling Technology 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. Y Yan, 0.5

91 <

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 3

Project Title:

Building Integrated PV/Thermal Systems 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Wilson, 0.5

> 92

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OVERVIEW: Hybrid PV systems combine the use of two or more alternative power sources and aim to increase the system’s total efficiency.

The photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) system is a hybrid structure that makes use of the 70%-95% of collected solar energy that is not converted into electricity.

A heat recovery medium like water, air ,heat pipes, PCM (Phase Change Material), or microencapsulated PCM slurry, can be used to lower the module’s temperature and the acquired heat then used for operations such as space heating, natural ventilation, or hot water supply.

Thin film photovoltaic cells do not suffer significant degradation in conversion efficiency with increase in temperature, so the thermal energy can be collected at higher temperatures.

PROJECT OUTCOMES: The project is focused on modelling and analyzing modern photovoltaic systems. Five types of thermal collection are presented and analyzed.

The first uses water in order to cool the panel, the second uses air, the third uses PCM in order to store and release heat, the forth uses a mixed fluid that consists of water and Micro-PCM in order to enhance the thermal capacity of the fluid and the fifth uses heat pipes in the back of the PV. Important characteristics of a conventional PV, such as power generation, will be calculated and compared with experimental data collected from the five systems.

The unique selling points of PVT are the higher energy yield per surface area, reduced payback time compared with conventional PV and the provision of one solar product for consumers' power and haeting needs.

WORK INVOLVED: (1). Literature review of the technologies that are involved in low-grade energy systems focusing on theoretical and experimental investigation of their performance and application.

(2). Monitoring and simulation of the performance of a BIPV system integrated into a real building providing representative load conditions.

(3). Testing and modelling of the cooled PV systems with heat recovery using water, air, heat pipes, PCM and microencapsulated PCM. (4). Environmental and cost analysis of each of the five systems.

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Asterios Bouzoukas

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The standard form, location and density to which buildings are constructed play a crucial role in determining their energy demand and the amount of CO2 emissions produced, which in turn contribute to a global warming and climate change. A way to reduce CO2 emissions is to use renewable energy sources within buildings.

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Experimental procedures for this research consisted of a series of wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics simulations, using different building forms, densities and orientations in order to investigate best locations for small wind turbine integration.

This research will offer theoretical and methodological guidelines to develop a zero carbon emission villa, using building integrated wind turbines as a cornerstone. The sustainable architectural design strategy, at a villa level, will be analyzed against social, economic and environmental scenarios.

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Liliana Campos-Arriaga

Course Title:

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Wind generation is a good choice of renewable energy as it is much less expensive in terms of installed cost per kilowatt than photovoltaics and it makes an attractive proposition as a building integrated power source.

However, since generation depends on incoming wind speed and direction, variables such as building size, shape, density and orientation are important and experimental research is needed in order to understand wind patterns in the built environment for wind turbine integration.

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

Zero-Carbon Emmissions Eco-Village 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Wilson, 0.5

93 <

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

Course Status:

Writing Up, year 2

Project Title:

Architectural Integration of PV and Wind Turbines 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. S. Omer, 0.5

> 94

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MY PHD RESEARCH TITLE: Enhanced Architectural Integration of Photovoltaics and Wind Turbines into Building Design

PUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPERS: 1. Design optimisation for cooling building integrated PV using CFD. Published in: (a). CISBAT - 2005 International conference, Lausanne, Switzerland. (b). SET-2005, International conference, Jian, China. (c). Sudanese Engineering Council conference-2006, Khartoum, Sudan.

2. Effect of duct width in ducted PV facades. Published in: (a). CISBAT – 2007 International conference, Lausanne, Switzerland.

(2). The approach adopted in the research explored how architectural design can help and provide for the successful integration of PV and wind turbines. In so doing it solved problems such as overheating, while fulfilling the architectural role of building envelopes generally and facades or curtain walling in particular.

(3). The interaction between buoyancy cooling of photovoltaics and the expression of this approach in the façade of buildings was explored.

(4). A ducted PV system was established as a component of the building fabric that can be optimised using different duct sizes and PV shapes through informed CFD simulations of the natural buoyancy phenomena.

(5). It was shown that the duct system attached to a PV installation can provide improved cooling, better than 15% to 60% over a PV installed without a ducting system in the investigated PV façade system in this study.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW: My PhD project explored the architectural opportunities offered by the integration of photovoltaic and wind turbine generators into the envelope of buildings. The benefits in terms of complementary generation from solar and wind sources were also explored in terms of continuity of supply. Several approaches to integration were developed and the practicalities of their application were explored using a number of case study buildings including detached houses, 6-storey apartments and 17-storey residential towers.

CONSULTANCY WORK INFORMED

BY THE PROJECT OUTCOMES: Design of residential apartment buildings of 6 and 17 storeys in height for Liny City, China.

RESEARCH OUTCOMES: (1). New concepts of sustainable architectural design through a coupled architectural and engineering approach to enhance the active integration of photovoltaics and wind turbines into buildings.

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Abdel Rahman Elbakheit

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A full scale experimental chamber was built to simulate the different parameters that affect overheating of highly glazed spaces. It has total dimensions of 2.400 x 2.400 x 3.400m (W x H x D) with one wall configured to accept façade test elements of 2.400 x 2.400m with cavity widths of up to 800mm.

This research project explores how architectural control of the form of a double skin envelope may be used to control overheating in buildings subject to moderate and critical summer conditions.

PROJECT AIMS The project seeks to: (1) Assess the environmental performance of existing envelope systems and architectural forms in order to improve indoor thermal conditions.

(2) Evaluate the implications of form and configuration of a DSF on the control of overheating.

(3) Develop an understanding of the limitations of DSFs and develop design tools to help designers to accurately apply Double Skin Facades where required.

WORK INVOLVED The project involves: (1) The assessment and characterization of the Double Skin Facade concept.

(2) The evaluation of the thermal performance of a DSF experimental chamber.

(3) CFD modelling of a DSF system for indoor comfort optimization.

(4) Monitoring of existing buildings in the UK. (5) Exploration of DSF architectural design and integration. ���������������������������������

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Overheating in DSFs raises the following issues: (1) DSFs encourage buoyancy, induce air movement and increase insulation. However, high levels of radiation can enter the building rather than being retained inside the DSF cavity if care is not given to the provision of shading.

(2) Convective forces inside the cavity can be used to advantage by promoting air extraction from the room.

(3) The main concern relating to the occurrence of overheating relates to how air is extracted from the room based on continuous airflow inside the facade cavity.

(4) CFD is a powerful tool for visualizing air flow patterns through DSFs, however, the boundary conditions have to be selected with care in order to obtain accurate results.

(5) Configuration of the facade and orientation are key elements in the decision making process for DSF design and applications.

Mauricio Hernandez

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

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OVERVIEW Double skin facades (DSF) have recently been developed as an approach to stabilise the thermal environment inside office buildings where designers wish to exhibit large areas of glass. This concept offers reduced U-values for fully glazed envelopes while at the same time providing high levels of sound insulation in urban areas. However, little has been done in the field of overheating control.

Writing Up, year 3

Project Title: ��������������������������������������

Overheating Control in Double Skin Facades 1st Supervisor:

Professor B. Ford, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. L Shao, 0.5

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95 <

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

Course Status:

Writing Up, year 4

Project Title:

Integrated Windcatcher/Heat exchanger 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. M. Gillott, 0.5

> 96

It has been estimated that this heat loss amounts to 3-15 GJ per year for a small domestic building and much more for larger buildings.

Therefore, it is particularly important to investigate and validate the potential of windcatchers within the UK. Further development of these ventilation devices is made possible by their integration with energy efficient components. In this project a heat exchanger unit transfers heat from the exhaust air stream to the supply air stream for reducing the heat loss due to ventilation. It also reduces the need to adjust the fresh air supply. A parameter that limits the use of a heat exchanger in natural ventilation is pressure loss. It causes insufficient air flow to the building and the required ventilation rates for buildings cannot be achieved.

One solution is to use a heat exchanger unit that incorporates two solar fans used in a balanced ventilation system. The solar fans provide sufficient supply and exhaust airflows when there is little or no wind. Solar fans are powered

by PV panels without using additional energy to achieve the aim of low carbon emissions. This project will evaluate the development of integrated windcatcher/ heat exchanger device exploring the pressure loss when air goes through the heat exchanger and the heat recovery efficiency of a low cost counter-flow plate heat exchanger using both experimental and computational methods.

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Yen-Liang Lin

Natural ventilation is becoming increasingly popular in current architectural design because it not only reduces the environmental impact of building operation but also provides good indoor air quality. The windcatcher system is a passive ventilation device that not only extracts air using passive stack principles but also utilizes the concept of a wind tower to supply air to indoor spaces. Traditionally, windcatchers were employed in buildings in the Middle East and have a history spanning over three thousands years. Natural ventilation from windcatchers is deployed in modern buildings to minimize energy consumption and the release of CO2 to the environment. Many of the recently built naturally ventilated buildings in the UK incorporate ventilation towers in various forms (solar, thermal or wind driven) with the purpose of increasing ventilation during the summer months so that the effect of heat gains can be reduced during the day and some cooling provided by night ventilation. However, during winter months natural ventilation can lead to heat loss due to thermal buoyancy created by air temperature difference between the indoor and the external environment. This then leads to additional energy demand for heating in order to maintain a comfortable indoor environment.

The introduction of the “Renovation" legislation in Vietnam (1986), led to a rapid urban and economic growth. This was translated into an influx of inward foreign investment which affected the urban development patterns of Vietnamese cities. The urban planning system has not been synchronized with the new political economy to cope and deal with the extensive growth that Vietnamese cities are experiencing in a short period of time. This led to an anarchic growth of cities, migration, pollution, erosion of cultural and traditional value... The research investigated the nature and content of current strategies designed to deal with the urban development of Vietnam. It unfold the shortcomings and the barriers to policy implementation while examining the role of governance, public participation and local culture in the implementation of sustainable development in Hanoithe case study.

The choice of research methods with preference to qualitative/phenomenological approach was based on the nature and context of the research. These include descriptive methods, case study methods, in deep interviews and site observation. The research has also collected available quantitative data as illustration for the overview of related topics. The most important method was the interviews with local authorities and local people which helped the researcher cross-check the opinions of interviewees in order to gain the truth, maintain objectiveness, have a holistic approach and understand the circumstances well. The development of a comprehensive and original approach to achieve sustainable development of Vietnamese cities, based on their specific context and culture is the primary objective of this research.

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Cuong Nguyen Phu Sustainable Development requires fundamental and revolutionary changes in the way economies and societies are developed. It is a holistic concept, bringing together local and global actors, both short and long term. The dilemma is that the primary concern of most governments is for economic rather than environmental issues, especially in developing countries, where poverty is the most significant obstacle of development: “poverty reduce people’s capacity to use resources in a sustainable manner and intensifies pressure on the environment” (WCED,1987). As the world moving from a rural civilisation to an urban one with a concentration of the means of production and services in cities, sustainability is now mainly an urban issue. Like many other countries, Vietnam is facing great challenges of promoting rapid economic growth while protecting the environment and maintaining social justice.

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

Sustainable Development in Vietnam 1st Supervisor:

Dr. M. Gadi, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. H. Trache, 0.5

97 <

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I am an architect, AHRC-funded PhD student in my final year working in the area between architecture and critical theory – with joint supervision provided by the School of the Built Environment and the Department of Cultural Studies. The following is an outline of my thesis topic:

Inspired by Jean Baudrillard’s notions of ‘symbolic exchange’, ‘obscenity’ and ‘simulation’, my research sets out to analyse western ocularcentrism (the predominance of vision over the other senses) in its relationship with the ‘system of the objects’ – in particular the postcapitalist objectification of the image. In taking into account the current preoccupation with transparency in public buildings, this study explores the politics of cultural aesthetics at work in the mirroring and shaping of ‘symbolic value’ as incorporated in the more and more complex concept of ‘commodity fetishism’. Three of the most controversial recent thinkers Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan and Slavoy Zizek, provide both the origin and the limits of a theoretical investigation across a number of humanities disciplines including architecture, design, art, visual culture, critical theory and cultural studies

I have published work in the journals: Architectural Design (May 2007); The International Journal of Baudrillardian Studies (January 2007); The Journal of Architecture (December 2006); and The Project (August 2002). Plus the book Mass Identity Architecture: Architectural Writing of Jean Baudrillard (Wiley, 2003 & 2006). I have also presented at the following conferences: The 1st International Conference on Baudrillardian Studies (2006) Swansea University; the 2nd International Conference on Transparency and Architecture (2006) Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece; the Annual Seminar on Erotism and the Object (2003) Third University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy; and the 1st Annual AHRA Research Student Symposium held at the University of Westminster (2004). I have recently curated a video exhibition entitled “Townscapes” for the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006.

Course Title:

Critical Theory

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

Research Outline 1st Supervisor:

Mr J. Hale, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Prof. P. Brooker, 0.5

> 98

Transparency challenges architecture and its social status. By allowing the eye to penetrate beyond conventional limits, (to perceive the ‘other’ and ‘claim’ the space), it reveals what stands outside and what lies inside; who sees and what is being seen; who is in control and what is being controlled. From public to private space, transparency emerges as a medium capable of redefining issues of social and individual identity alongside its technological novelty.

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Francesco Proto

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Guoquan Qiu

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Social Science)

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Increasing concern about global warming and climate change are leading to iterest in environmentally responsible systems such as evaporative and desiccant cooling.

This project focuses on the improvement of a commercially available evaporative cooler. In order to use evaporative cooling in humid climates, an air dehumidification device should be used prior to the evaporative cooling system. The proposed device therefore uses a liquid desiccant and a regenerator.

In the original evaporative cooler, a TAC-150, it was discovered that only around 1/3 of the PEC was wetted when relying on capillary action from a water sump below.

Several improvements to the TAC150 were explored, such as adding top-down wetting devices. PV panels were also used to power the cooler instead of mains electricity, as shown in the top left figure.

A novel air dehumidifier using potassium formate solution was built and tested. The solution flows along the V-shape plastic mesh to avoid the carryover of liquid solution droplets by spraying, as shown in the bottom figure. The decrease of relative humidity was over 25% for single pass air circulation using concentrated solution to desiccate humid air. The dilute solution could be regenerated by a novel solar evacuated tube regeneration system, as shown in the top right figure. The experimental results were better than solar flat-plate regeneration systems reported in the literature.

Course Status:

Writing up, year 3

Project Title:

A novel evaporative/desiccant cooling system 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. G. Gan, 0.5

99 <

Waraporn Rattanongphisat

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

Vortex Cooling/Photovoltaic system 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. G. Gan, 0.5

> 100

Fossil fuel (coal, oil and natural gas) combustion alone is responsible for three-quarters of total CO2 emissions. The addition of natural greenhouse gases (CO2, NO2 and CH4) and artificial gases (CFCs and SF6) has caused the greenhouse effect. This has started to increase the average global temperature with numerous consequences such as the rising sea levels. As global air temperature continues to increase, the demand for air conditioning expands every year. Pout et al (1998) studies of energy use in non-domestic buildings in the UK show that energy consumption for cooling is high, particularly in office buildings. Since cooling requires electricity, an increase in the demand for electricity is expected.

Gas and coal represent 70% of the total fuel consumption in electricity generation and hence contribute to the rise of pollutants in the atmosphere (DTI, 2005).

In addition, some existing air conditioning systems still employ working fluids such as CFCs, although a number of systems have phased these out in favour of HFCs. CFCs refrigerants have a very high ozone depletion potential and global warming potential followed

by HCFCs and HFCs. A renewable resource such as solar energy is free and environmentally friendly. The potential of renewable energy, as a new resource, has been established for both thermal power application and electrical power production. The development of renewable technologies can reduce reliance on fossil fuel power plants.

Solar energy can generate electricity through photovoltaic cells. The advanced development of photovoltaic cell technologies results in an increase of cell efficiency and a decrease in price.

The more PV systems are installed the less the total system cost will be for users.

Equally important, a new cooling technique employing natural substances for a working fluid or refrigerant must be considered. A vortex tube system could generate an outlet stream at low temperature within a minute. This benefits several applications such as spot cooling and cryogenic cooling in biomaterial storage systems.

Natural working fluids can be used in the system, leading to a further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The considerable potential of providing a high quality of cold stream has been employed for enclosure cooling and automobile carriage cooling. The vortex tube system can also be extended into space cooling applications in buildings.

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The overall aim of this study is to develop a strategic method and design tool to enable suitable combinations of renewable energy technologies and CHP systems to be selected for a building or mix of buildings at the early stages of the building design process.

A computer tool is being developed for sizing CHP and renewable energy systems for residential and office buildings. The technologies considered in the tool are CHP systems, photovoltaics, solar hot water systems, conventional boilers and grid electricity. The use of these technologies for the supply of electricity, hot water, and space heating is investigated and the integration of these technologies is optimised.

The sizing of CHP and renewable energy systems relies critically on a building’s energy load profiles.

However, it is often difficult to predict these for a new building.

The computer sizing tool uses the Monte Carlo Method to account for the uncertainty of building energy load profiles The database of building energy load profiles used in the tool is built up from collating existing electricity, hot water and space heating load profiles for residential and office buildings. A survey and monitoring study is also carried out to collect real residential hot water consumption patterns.

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Esther Rischmuller-Magadley

Course Title:

The computer tool determines the optimal energy demand, size and technology mix, environmental impact, and the cost associated with the system, reflecting the range these values can have due to the uncertainty of the building energy load profiles.

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

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The use of low carbon technologies, such as renewable energy technologies and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in the built environment, is becoming increasingly more important.

However, without reliable rules of thumb, the initial design of these systems tends to be more complicated and time consuming than the design of traditional energy systems.

Course Status:

Writing up, year 3

Project Title: ���������������������������

Integrating Renewables with CHP and Buildings 1st Supervisor:

Dr. M. Gadi, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Boukhanouf, 0.5

101 <

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Photo-Piezoelectric Composite Materials for Multi-source Energy Conversion.

other stretched. As a result, electrical charge develops across the layer in an effort to counteract the imposed strains, and this can be collected for subsequent use by an appropriate electrical circuit.

Piezoelectric devices are widely produced for a variety of applications, e.g., sonic and ultrasonic transducers, spark light producers and key finders.

Wave power could be converted to electricity by installing arrays of the flexible composite material on the surface of water.

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 3

Project Title:

Photo-Piezoelectric Solar Cell 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. G. Gan, 0.5

> 102

The project objective is to investigate new composite materials incorporating a piezoelectric material and thin film PV cells for electricity generation. The new materials are based on deposition/lamination of thin film photovoltaic (PV) materials on piezoelectric polymer sheets, and will provide conversion of a combination of solar/wind or solar/wave energy into electricity.

Piezoelectric devices can be used to convert vibration resulting from wind and wave power into electricity. These materials have long been used to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy, eg, piezo actuators and controllers, and can also be used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. When a mechanical force causes a polarized 2-layer element of piezoelectric material to bend, one layer is compressed and the

In order to improve the power generation density of piezoelectric devices, thin film PV cells could be deposited onto piezoelectric polymer sheets, so forming a composite material with the ability to convert solar energy, as well as wind or wave power to electricity.

The composite material could be used between buildings complex, balconies, or within the bulkhead between the floors of a building (e.g., multi-storey car park). It could also be mounted on motorway sound barriers or wind breaks, and adjacent to airport runways.

Laboratory testing of composite panels of different thickness and flexibility is being carried out for a range of wind speeds and frequencies of oscillation, in order to evaluate their performance for power conversion. In order to optimise the panel resonance for a given piezoelectric material and PV cell composite, panels of various shapes and thicknesses are being examined.

Computer simulation is being carried out as well to characterise the performance of the composite material under a range of conditions.

Finally, a building-integrated shading system is currently being tested and developed, that would convert solar and wind in the same device.

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Salvador Rodriguez

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Thermoelectric (TE) systems present a distinct advantage in that they do not use moving parts or CFC-based refrigerants to transfer heat, and emit no noise or vibration.

By combining the two systems, heat from the TE cooling system that is normally rejected to the environment can serve as a heat source to drive the absorption cycle.

Also, the considerable amounts of low grade heat rejected from the absorber and condenser can be recovered.

Heat pipes are employed as the heat exchanger to the TE module as they have excellent heat transfer ability. The absorption cycle uses LiBr/H2O solution as the working pair for its good thermodynamic and cycle performance properties.

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In this research, the investigation is focused on using heat generated from TE modules to drive a singleeffect absorption cycle in a small scale cooling system. The TE module, used as a heat source to drive the absorption cycle, is sandwiched between the generator and absorber cylinder end plates.

Power supply to TE modules appears as heat at the TE/generator interface. ����������������������������������

A mathematical model was developed to theoretically investigate the performance of the novel absorption-thermoelectric system for cooling in order to provide design data for an experimental prototype system.

Theoretical overall COP was found to be almost as high as a doubleeffect absorption refrigeration system, which is around 1.0-1.2. A prototype system was constructed and tested. Although the experimental results showed a lower overall COP than the theoretical prediction, the overall agreement was reasonable. Further improvement in the system COP may be possible through improving absorber and evaporator performance, TE module contactresistance and heat exchangers.

PUBLICATIONS 1. SUPASUTEEKUL A., Integrated thermoelectric-absorption system for cooling. In: 6th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Natural Working Fluids Conference, Glasgow, UK, August 29-September 1, 2004.

2. BOUKHANOUF R. and SUPASUTEEKUL A., Theoretical analysis of an integrated thermoelectric-absorption cooling system. International Journal of Low Carbon Technologies, 2(1), 2007 52-64.

Ajaree Supasuteekul

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Growing international concern about global warming and ozone depletion has encouraged more research and development of energy efficient and environmental friendly refrigeration and airconditioning systems to be undertaken. Absorption refrigeration systems, based on a heat-operated refrigeration cycle, have the potential to address such concerns. They offer an alternative to electrically driven vapour compression systems using thermal power as the driving force. In principle, any type of thermal energy can served as a heat source for these systems.

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

An absorption-thermoelectric system for cooling 1st Supervisor:

Professor S.B. Riffat, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Boukhanouf, 0.5

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Woo Yong Yi

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Writing up, year 4

Project Title:

Central Public Space in Museums 1st Supervisor:

Mr. J. Hale, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. L. Hanks, 0.5

> 104

‘From the moment it is conceived, through its design, production, use, continuous reconstruction in response to changing use, until its final demolition, the building is a developing story, traces of which are always present.’ Use has also changed. In the process, it is believed that the transformation has been partly governed by the nature of the building, those who occupy it, and partly by external forces. The changing interplay between internal and external forces is a key rationale for the investigation of the spatial transformation. Moreover, Henri Lefebvre defines it as a ‘spatial practice’ in which existing space has been modified in order to expand spatial possibilities. The ‘reappropriation’ and ‘diversion’ of space are issues of great significance in order to overcome the constraints of space through the reproduction of new space, because the existing space had become inadequate according to the change of ‘social relations’ in a capitalist society.

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While social theories have often focused on processes of social change, modernisation, and technical and political revolution, architectural theories try to find certain aesthetic and spatial significance through the creation of a new space. From the two different theories, the two questions arise: how have such trains of thought in social theories treated human social experience and the process of social change, and how has architectural practice represented the change?

By investigating the two questions, we could understand how social change has contributed to the spatial transformation of existing space, and therefore, the way in which political-economic change has influenced the changes of architectural culture.

From the socio-cultural view point, this research answers the questions of what the main forces that have caused the existing British Museum space to change are and what the impacts of the introduction of the new space on contemporary visitors and their spatial experiences are.

Elucidating the two research questions, this study attempts to identify what the significance of this intervention is for contemporary culture and society.

By conducting an investigation of museum history and an analysis of museum physical space, a case study methodology is employed in order to explicate the changes of the museum space/visitor relationship and analyse the transformation of the museum space.

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The opening of the Great Court of the British Museum in 2000 marked a new beginning for the museum.

The inner open space has been covered by a soaring glass roof, transforming a space that had been hidden for 150 years into a new central public space. Now the museum buildings consist of the quadrangle, the Reading Room, and the recently introduced Great Court.

This newly introduced central public space precisely represents the museum's raison d’être.

While each case study is seen as a rich and detailed self-contained unit that exhibits idiosyncratic features, the cross-case analysis determines patterns shared by the different cases. This results in a proposal for a theoretical model of the design process that suggests that the integration of sustainability crosses over intuitive, analytical and social dimensions.

The conclusions point out the implications of this model for practice, research and education in this field. They suggest that practitioners and researchers embrace different paradigms of the nature of the design process.

Practitioners embrace a Conjecture/Analysis paradigm that stresses the role of the intuitive process based on knowledge and experience that is shared by architects and engineers alike, who exhibit a shared character of designers. In contrast, most researchers embrace an Analysis/Synthesis paradigm that is based on a ‘scientific’ view of the design process, which guides them to focus on the development of tools and methods over the generation and transfer of wider sources of knowledge. Finally, this thesis discusses the crucial role that education plays in building up tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge and skills, crossing over the intuitive, analytical and social dimensions of the design process.

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Maureen Trebilcock

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Completed

Project Title: ���������������������������������

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The aim of this thesis is to develop a theoretical model of the design process that explains how architects integrate environmental sustainability issues in practice, with emphasis on the roles of designassisting tools and interdisciplinary teamwork. The methodology was based on five case studies of contemporary architectural practices in Europe that are considered to be leaders in the field of sustainable design: Edward Cullinan, Michael Hopkins and Feiden Clegg Bradley in the UK; Mario Cucinella in Italy; and Behnisch Architekten in Germany. A specific non-domestic building designed by each practice was chosen as an embedded unit of analysis with the intention of mapping its design process. The data collection strategies included interviews with architects, engineers and clients; as well as compilation of graphic information including drawings and reports; and observations.

Sustainability at the Design Process 1st Supervisor:

Professor B. Ford, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. R. Wilson, 0.5

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105 <

Course Title:

Architecture (Social Science)

Course Status:

Suspended, year 2

Project Title:

Prefabrication and Quality Housing 1st Supervisor:

Professor T. Heath, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Mr G. Farmer, 0.5

> 106

Prefabrication has been attracting the interest of the construction industry due to its prominent advantage, which is related to the promise of reduced costs, reduced time on site and improved quality.

The efficiency of factory production and the accurate coordination of trades underlie its potential to be a driver of development in the framework of the highly competitive market.

The application becomes much more challenging in the housing sector. There is a great opportunity for prefabrication to respond to changing needs, lifestyles and household structures. In Britain, the unhappy experiences of the past have been a barrier to the implementation of prefabrication.

However, the concerns of the government about the growing need for housing and the shortage of skilled labour, have rekindled interest in off-site construction.

Today, sustainability, with its economic, social and environmental benefits is the main driver. Energy efficiency and improved on-site safety are key arguments for the wider implementation of prefabrication.

Although the architectural experiments in the history of the prefabricated house were not successful, the current involvement of architects in the off-site construction sector seems to have contributed significantly to the spread and acceptability of prefabrication. Several prefabricated apartment buildings demonstrate the potential for creating highly respected solutions and address the issues of density and affordable city living.

Moreover, although, digital fabrication has created new prospects for the built environment, at present, implementation of prefabrication in a wide scale requires

reconciliation with the characteristics and limitation of the different offsite construction systems. Nevertheless, this is not a substantial constraint.

Prefabrication offers a different approach to "building" which, if creatively handled does not affect negatively the quality of the end product. Manipulating standardization could be a way to achieve formal richness and customization.

Acknowledging the increasing use of information technology in the construction processes and envisioning a sustainable future, the primary focus of this research is on achieving and retaining quality in housing through the use of offsite construction methods. It is important to ensure that durability, high performance and design quality will not be compromised in favour of time and cost savings.

������������������������ ���������������������������

Eirini Maria Gerogianni

The aim of this research is to investigate a novel solar/air heat pump system able to:

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1) Provide space heating in winter and cooling in summer.

2) Supply hot water all year round.

3) Provide electricity when demand for heating or cooling is low or they are not required.

The system comprises prefabricated PV/e roof modules that are interconnected and fitted to the roof truss to act as an evaporator for a heat pump. A desiccant wheel, a dew point cooler (psychrometric energy core) and PCM storage are also incorporated to provide cooling and heat storage using solar energy.

The heat pump system employs an environmentally friendly refrigerant and is driven by solar energy, thereby minimising the use of fossil fuels.

The objectives of the project include: 1) Developing a model for the optimisation of PV/e roof module configurations.

2) Constructing a PV/e module, testing its performance and operating characteristics as well as validating the modelling results using the test data.

3) Designing and constructing a 5kW PV/e module based heat pump system and testing its performance on the Sustainable Research Building at the University of Nottingham.

4) Carrying out economic and environmental analyses.

This research work has the following innovative features: 1) The combination of PV cells and evaporation coils will reduce the cell

surface temperature and so improve both thermal and electrical efficiencies.

2) Use of a top cover reduces heat dissipation from the cell surface to the surrounding air and so improves the module's solar conversion ratio.

3) Incorporation of the PV and evaporation coil into a prefabricated roof module allows the module to perform as both the evaporator and roof finish, thus leading to significant savings in initial and running cost.

4) The PV/e module is designed to produce electricity/heat to match the need of the heat pump/cooling system, thus creating a highly efficient heating/cooling system for building applications.

This work will be highly relevant to various government's target towards reduced CO2 emission

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Ikedi Chuckwuemeka

Course Title:

IBT/ISET (Engineering) (Science)

Course Status:

Suspended, year 1

Project Title:

Investigation of a novel photovoltaic/evaporator 1st Supervisor:

Dr M. Hall, 0.5 2nd Supervisor:

Dr. P. Doherty, 0.5

.

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School Research Facilities The School occupies a range of purpose-built and adapted buildings on the main University Park campus within the city of Nottingham. The accommodation includes approximately 550 square meters of research laboratory space centred around the Sustainable Research Building, completed in 2003, which also provides individual workstations for around 90 research students. The building incorporates a range of integrated sustainable technologies including: Photovoltaics (PV), solar thermal collectors, wind turbines, combined heat and power systems, light pipes, self cleaning windows and rainwater collection systems. Additional space for the integration of research, demonstration and teaching is provided in the Marmont Centre for Renewable Energy as well as the recently converted Energy Learning Unit.

A major new undergraduate studio building (Environmental Education Centre) was also opened at the beginning of the 2004-05 academic session, completing a major programme of capital investment in the School within the current RAE period.

The Ecohouse is an experimental two-storey four-bedroom dwelling, funded and constructed by David Wilson Homes in 2000. The design is based on an adapted standard house type integrated with PV, solar thermal collectors, a wind turbine, combined heat and power, light pipes, ground

> 108

source heat reclaim, and a rainwater collection system. Research is continuing into the performance of the sustainable technologies integrated into the building. A new phase of this research has recently begun with the construction of the first of a series of Creative Energy Homes which will provide further opportunities for monitoring environmental performance of domestic spaces under â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;realâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; conditions.

The Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workshops and laboratories contain a range of specialist research equipment including a windtunnel, an artificial sky (installed in 2004) plus a number of acoustics, lighting and thermal monitoring instruments. Research facilities have recently been supplemented with the addition of a Solar Simulator System. This equipment will provide the School with the ability to simulate real conditions accurately for PV and solar thermal research testing. In addition to this the School has also developed a Hydro-Electric Powered Test Rig which allows the accurate laboratory testing of turbines, as well as research into turbine technology and its applications. The School has also created a Thermo-Imaging Test Rig for research into the thermal performance of buildings. These new facilities will allow the further expansion of research into current and future issues within the built environment, and will also help the School to maintain and develop its

ongoing engagement with industry.

A new capital project currently under development is the proposed Creative Construction Centre which will provide a major new workshop and prototyping hall where building elements can be constructed and tested at full scale. Digital fabrication technologies will also be provided, including laser cutting and 3-D printing/rapid prototyping. In collaboration with the School of Civil Engineering, the first steps have been taken towards the creation of a faรงade testing facility which will also be part of the new centre. Fees earned through initial services rendered contracts with commercial clients will contribute towards the development of this major R&D facility involving a number of staff from a range of research groups within the School.

Creative Construction Centre David Wilson Eco-House

Environmental Education Centre

Sustainable Research Building

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CREATIVE ENERGY HOMES

Concern over global warming and depletion of the ozone layer has stimulated research to develop energy-efficient systems and sustainable buildings. Furthermore, as reserves of fossil fuels diminish there will be increasing pressure to use renewable energy sources. The UK Government is committed to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20% by the year 2010 but this is set against the projection of a further 4.2 million new houses being constructed between now and 2016. Dwellings in the UK account for approximately 28% of the UK total of carbon dioxide emissions through the burning of fossil fuel for heating, lights and appliances. This includes combustion on the premises, mainly natural gas for heating and cooking, and combustion in power stations to produce electricity for homes. Space heating accounts for 57%; water heating a further 25%; cooking 5% and lights and appliances 13%. The demand

> 110

for energy to run heating/hot water systems and other home appliances such as refrigerators, cookers, lighting, etc is expected to be 13% higher in 2010 than it was in 1990.

If the CO2 emissions target is to be achieved, it will therefore be necessary to develop better construction techniques and new and renewable energy technologies for building applications. Fast-track prefabrication techniques are also required to speed up the house building process and reduce wastage and defects.

‘Creative energy Homes’ is a research and educational showcase of innovative state-of-the-art energy efficient homes of the future. Five homes constructed on the University Park will be designed and constructed to various degrees of innovation and flexibility to allow the testing of different aspects of modern methods of construction (mmc) including layout and form, cladding materials,

roof structures, foundations, glazing materials, thermal performance, building services systems, sustainable/renewable energy technologies, lighting systems, acoustics and water supply. The project aims to stimulate sustainable design ideas and promote new ways of providing affordable, environmentally sustainable housing that are innovative in their design. The project is primarily funded by companies from all sectors of the construction industry and associated businesses. Main sponsors include: Stoneguard Ltd, Roger Bullivant Ltd, EON, BASF and Tarmac. The project is timely due to the UK Governments introduction of the new ‘Code for Sustainable Homes’ and their ambitious target for all new homes to be built to a zero carbon standard by 2016. In addition to new build homes the Creative Energy Homes project will also address the energy issues associated with the UK’s existing housing stock

of 25 million homes. The Eon house will explore strategies that can be adopted to transform existing housing stock incrementally towards zero emission dwellings.

The project will also be replicated in China on the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo Campus as part of an initiative by the School’s Ningbo based ‘Centre for Sustainable Energy Technology’.

More information can be found at: www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe/creative_energy_homes/ or by contacting mark.gillott@nottingham.ac.uk

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International links Many of the research challenges the School identifies and explores are multi disciplinary in nature and international in scope. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that an outward looking approach to research, one that seeks to identify and collaborate with internationally leading experts and organisations, should be one of the School’s major strengths.

Often established in response to an immediate research question, there is significant value in nurturing such relationships, identifying ongoing research areas and providing the ability to pull together powerful research teams in response.

The School offers support for individual researchers to meet with potential partners and is investing in teleconferencing technology to help ensure efficient use of time and also reduce carbon emissions resulting from travel. In addition to supplementing travel support obtained from research councils and learned societies, the University’s membership of organisations such as Universitas 21 also provides an opportunity for staff and student exchange between some of the world’s leading research universities. These have supported short-term visits to research facilities to tackle focused research problems as well as longerterm staff exchanges exploring more substantive projects.

The University’s international pres-

> 112

ence through its campuses in Malaysia and China provide further opportunities to develop international links. Given the growing prominence of China as an economic force and the potential social, economic and environmental sustainability issues that flow from this, such presence is a valuable opportunity to make a positive contribution to the research agenda. In recognition, the setting up of The Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies (CSET) on Nottingham’s Ningbo campus, places the School in a powerful position to respond. This provides staff on the ground with a state-of –the-art research facility designed by one of the School’s Special Professors of Design in Architecture, the Italian architect Mario Cucinella. In addition to its mission to train researchers locally, the team is engaging with local research teams, government bodies and industry to foster new research industrial collaborations between China and the UK and respond to major funding opportunities such as the EU Asia-Link programme.

Networks provide further opportunities to broaden research activity and the School has been active in establishing networks as well as being active participants within them. RNET and CHAM represent two examples to illustrate the type of activity networks encompass. Established with funding from the EU-India Economic Cross Cultural Programme, the RENET EU-India Network has a focus

on Renewable Energy Research and Technology Transfer for the Built Environment. With a main objective of developing and maintaining a competitive EU and Indian renewable energy industry, it is coordinated by the School, managed by the University of Porto and involves three Institutes of Science and Technology in Madras, Bangalore and Mumbai.

The EPSRC funded ‘CHAM’ network brings together partners from UK, China, the USA and Australia and seeks to develop City History and Multi-scale Spatial Masterplanning research.

Collaborative research and the relationships developed to facilitate such activities have also resulted in the establishment and hosting of international conferences. In addition to providing valuable opportunities to exchange research and development ideas, close association and involvement in conference activities helps to identify new partners for future projects. The School is coorganiser of the international conference series on Sustainable Energy Technology (SET), which was held for the 6th time in 2007 at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Previous events have taken place in China, Italy and Portugal, with the next in planned for Korea. The School has also hosted the 2nd Annual AHRA International Conference in 2005, a two-day international event supported by the Humanities Research

Centre at the University of Nottingham and the Leverhulme Trust.

The conference was co-organised by Professor Marco Frascari of Carleton University, Canada. The School was also co-organiser for the International Conference on Bionic Engineering (ICBEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;06) held at Jilin University, Changchun, China in 2006.

Finally the School places great value in its ongoing relationship with its postgraduate research students who upon graduation represent a highly valued and extremely powerful network of research experts in academia and industry covering the globe. Built up over the time spent at Nottingham, these relationships have provided opportunity for exchange of research students and staff, collaborative research activity and engagement with industry.

Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies, Ningbo, China Mario Cucinella Architects

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Special Professors at the SBE Professor Roger Bullivant Owner and Chairman of Roger Bullivant Ltd for 35 years, he has developed the Company into a dynamic specialist civil engineering concern based on innovation, customer care and leadership. The Company operates from a network of specialist centres across the UK with its headquarters in the Midlands.

Professor W Chun Currently a full professor at Cheju National University in Korea, Professor Chun serves on the board of directors for the Korean Solar Energy Society and the Korea Society of Energy and Climate Change. Last year he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Journal of Korea Society of Energy & Climate Change and is also an editor for the Internal Journal of Low Carbon Technologies.

Professor Peter Clegg Architect, Founding partner of Feilden Clegg Bradley Architects, award winning designers based in London and Bath, specialising in low energy design, and also renowned for being a ‘research based’ practice.

Professor Mario Cucinella,

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Architect, Principal of MCA Integrated Design, based in Bologna, Italy. He is committed to environmentally sensitive building design, and is the architect of the new Centre for Sustainable Energy Technology Building for the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China.

Professor Ted Cullinan Architect, Founding partner of Edward Cullinan Architects, established in 1965 and based in London. Highly respected for designing carefully considered and environmentally sensitive buildings from small houses to university campuses in many parts of the world.

Professor Nick Ebbs Building Economist, Chief Executive of ‘Blueprint’, the Property Regeneration Partnership, which has as its mission the pursuit of environmentally sustainable property development. Currently engaged on a number of major projects in Nottingham and the Midlands region.

Professor Mick Eekhout.

Architect/structural engineer.

Founder of ‘Octatube Space Structures’, and programme

Director at TU Delft specialising in the design and construction of complex structures.

Professor Tony Marmont Director of Beacon Energy Ltd. Awarded an honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Doctor of Technology Degree from Loughborough University, Tony is on the Board of Trustees for the National Energy Foundation and is also a Director of ‘Environ’ in Leicester.

Professor Bryan Gray MBE Chairman of Northwest Development Agency and previously Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of Baxi Group Limited, one of Europe’s leading heating companies. He is Vicepresident of the Micropower Council and Pro Chancellor of the University of Lancaster. He was Chairman of Preston North End Football Club until 2001 and was founder Chairman of the National Football Museum. He was awarded The Prince of Wales’ Ambassador Award for the Northwest in 2006.

He is non-executive Chair of Urban Splash Hotel Co.

Professor Alistair Guthrie Environmental Engineer.

A Director of Ove Arup and Partners, based in London. Lead engineer on many projects with Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

Leads the Sustainable Buildings Network for Arup in Europe and is a founder member of the UK Green Building Council.

Professor Terry Payne Chairman and Managing Director of Monodraught Ltd., he formed the company 30 years ago to pioneer the development of Vertical Balanced-Flue chimney systems. In 1982 Monodraught launched the WindCatcher Natural Ventilation system, and in 1995 the SunPipe system. Today more than 25,000 SunPipe systems are sold in the UK every year.

Professor David Reay Consulting Engineer & Principal Consultant, Professor Reay has over 30 years experience of research into energy-efficient processes, including heat pumps and heat pipes. He is co-author of standard texts on both these topics and is Editor in Chief of the journal Applied Thermal Engineering, now in its 20th volume.

Professor Ken Shuttleworth Architect, Founding partner of MAKE Architects and previously worked with Foster Associates.

Currently designing the extension to the Jubilee Campus for the University of Nottingham.

Professor Peter Smith Emeritus Professor at the Leeds School of Architecture and previously taught at Sheffield University. Was Principal of the practice Ferguson Smith and Partners which specialised in hospital and community projects, churches and social housing. In 1982, he formed Equity Homes Ltd to build first-time-buyer properties with inbuilt capacity for expansion.

Professor David Strong Sustainable Buildings Consultant of Renewable Energy Systems Group (RES), one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading renewable energy companies, with offices across the UK and overseas.

David was previously Managing Director of BRE Environment and is currently Chairman of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive Implementation Advisory Group.

Chairman â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Brian Warwicker Partnership plc, which since 1971 has established industry wide links with major professional organisations and won many awards. The practice is registered with CIBSE and is a qualified assessor for BREEAM. Professor Mark Whitby Mark Whitby is a founding Partner and Chairman of Ramboll Whitbybird. Closely involved with clients and architects, he works on projects at concept stage onwards, focusing on the total design and establishing design criteria and quality objectives.

He has a reputation for imaginative design solutions that exploit the possibilities of materials and the latest construction methods and he also champions a philosophy of sustainable design. He is a former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Professor Brian Warwicker

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The editor would like to specially thank the following people for their contribution in the production of this book: - Professor Brian Ford, Dr Robin Wilson and Jonathan Hale for their massive support in all stages of this book.

- Pyramid Press & Jigsaw Systems - My family for supporting me in these tasks, sometimes useless, but always rewarding... spiritually at least. the dreamer & romantic loser* * quoted from the article â&#x20AC;&#x153;How we teach todayâ&#x20AC;? from Charles Holland contained in the exhibit! 07 Design Year book.

Research Year Book 2007 The School of the Built Environment University Park Campus Nottingham NG7 2RD UK

Tel: 44 (0)1159514184 Fax: 44 (0)115 9513159 architecture@nottingham.ac.uk www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe