A Handbook of Sustainable Building Design and Engineering

An Integrated Approach to Energy, Health and Operational Performance

Dejan Mumovic, Mat Santamouris, Dejan Mumovic, Mat Santamouris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351696616
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Sustainability in Architecture

The second edition of this authoritative textbook equips students with the tools they will need to tackle the challenges of sustainable building design and engineering. The book looks at how to design, engineer and monitor energy efficient buildings, how to adapt buildings to climate change, and how to make buildings healthy, comfortable and secure. New material for this edition includes sections on environmental masterplanning, renewable technologies, retrofitting, passive house design, thermal comfort and indoor air quality. With chapters and case studies from a range of international, interdisciplinary authors, the book is essential reading for students and professionals in building engineering, environmental design, construction and architecture.

PART 1

Introduction to urban environments

Introduction

Dejan Mumovic and Mat Santamouris

In this book we argue that understanding what makes a city sustainable requires a dialogue between a variety of researchers. Engineers, geographers, architects, planners, designers, ecologists and sociologists all conduct research in an effort to better understand the sustainable cities and communities. Chapter 1.1 states that multidisciplinary research can help us to analyse how sustainability of the urban environment is framed, while disciplinary knowledges can complement each other in producing a perspective of the subject. Chapter 1.1 also describes both the process and outcomes of developing a conceptual and methodological framework to investigate sustainable communities within a multifarious research team: combining social and physical perspectives. Equally broad, Chapter 1.2 focuses on offering a description of an integrated approach to developing strategies at an initial stage of the masterplanning process. It outlines the need to carefully consider the contextual issues of a given urban area that can inform the development of a vision for the masterplan. The authors claim that this vision, which is informed by the various actors within the development process, goes to setting out the objectives to which an environmental strategy must respond. These objectives are in turn embodied in targets that can be measured under a set of defined metrics. This authors further argue that environmental masterplanning process must emphasise the integration of the dynamic urban systems in order to achieve both synergy and resilience.

Adapting to and ameliorating the effects of urban heat islands on energy use, comfort and health will require appropriate policies for urban planning, housing and transport. However, before these policies can be developed, quantitative tools are required to identify and quantify the net effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Chapter 1.3 advocates that the wider picture should be considered. The authors explain that in summer, urban heat islands in the UK will tend to result in an increased cooling load and an increased number of excess deaths due to overheating. Conversely, in winter the urban heat islands will tend to result in reduced heating loads and a reduced number of cold-related excess deaths. This chapter therefore explains that the net effects of these impacts must be borne in mind when considering large-scale urban modifications. Taking into account the growing concerns related to the exposure of urban dwellers to air pollution, Chapter 1.4 aims to summarise air flow and air pollution patterns in urban environments and discuss possible implications to building design. The authors address the fundamental principles related to urban indoor/outdoor air quality modelling and monitoring, which are of importance to both building design and urban planning professionals.

This part of the book provides only a starting point for readers who are interested in urban environments. It will develop with the rapidly increasing body of knowledge, which will form a science of cities.

1.1
BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Combining social and physical perspectives

Gemma Moore, Irene Perdikogianni, Alan Penn and Mags Adams

Introduction

Sustainability has moved from a goal to a necessity in the urban environment. The recent focus of urban planning and urban regeneration practice has been to create sustainable, healthy and viable communities with positive neighbourhood identities. Visions of thriving, mixed-use, economically stable and socially inclusive cities with clean, green, safe neighbourhoods have been presented as the possible future of many urban areas. However, how to actually create such areas and communities is not entirely clear. Realistically, an answer to this question can only be reached using empirical evidence drawn from the functioning of an urban area and its dwellers’ experience of everyday life within it. Understanding what makes a city sustainable therefore requires a dialogue between a huge variety of researchers. Engineers, geographers, architects, planners, designers, ecologists and sociologists all conduct research in an effort to better understand the sustainable cities and communities. Multidisciplinary research can help us to analyse how sustainability of the urban environment is framed, while disciplinary knowledges can complement each other in producing a perspective of the subject. This chapter describes both the process and outcomes of developing a conceptual and methodological framework to investigate sustainable communities within a multifarious research team: combining social and physical perspectives.

Historically the social and physical infrastructures of the city have coevolved and are interdependent; yet we do not fully understand their interaction (see Hommels, 2000). On the other hand, earlier studies conducted by academics such as Martin (1972) or Hillier and Hanson (1984) suggested that the way in which the physical environment of a city or a neighbourhood is arranged forms news possibilities for the way in which people choose to live and work. However, to date, the focus of research has either been on individual perceptions and attitudes toward specific ‘places’ or on more generalized design features of urban areas. In this chapter we describe multidisciplinary research that marries these two approaches. Focusing on Clerkenwell in London, UK, as a case study of a vibrant urban community, we present a new way of thinking about contemporary urban communities. To illustrate the wide range of complex interactions between the physical, social and economic processes of the urban mechanism, our study combines quantitative analysis of Clerkenwell’s street layout (incorporating information on its usage and the historical formation and transformation of the urban fabric of the area) with qualitative information on perceptions and behaviours of city centre residents.

Background: What is a sustainable community?

The concept of a sustainable community is inherently a spatial construct, focusing on place-based communities. Sustainable communities are now central to UK developmental policy; for instance, Living Places (ODPM, 2002), Sustainable Communities Plan (ODPM, 2003) and Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development (ODPM, 2004a) all refer to this notion, presenting an intertwining of the discourses of sustainable development and sustainable communities. The government’s definition of a sustainable community clearly embodies the key principles of sustainable development; it states that sustainable communities are ones which:

… meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, their children and other users, contribute to a high quality of life and provide opportunity and choice. They achieve this in ways that make effective use of natural resources, enhance the environment, promote social cohesion and inclusion, and strengthen economic prosperity.

(ODPM, 2004b, p. 35)

Within urban spatial policy, the government promotes that a sustainable community has seven essential, balanced and integrated components (an active and cohesive community; well run in terms of governance; is environmentally sensitive; is a well-designed built environment; is well connected; has a thriving economy; and is well serviced), which should underpin planning and design processes.

The definition of a sustainable community describes a particular ‘type’ of neighbourhood, with a well-designed built environment, a range of employment opportunities, and a certain degree of social interaction and social cohesion that facilitates social order. Nevertheless, the formation of a neighbourhood involves a social–psychological experience with a physical space; therefore, the defined spatial area of a neighbour hood can be seen as subject to how people use and feel about the built environment. The geographer Doreen Massey has explored and strived to explain the complexities of this relationship throughout her work (see Massey, 1994). Massey argues that a person’s development of place is an ongoing formation of social relations, interconnections and movements. Both Jacobs (1961) and Lynch (1960, 1984) have been instrumental in exploring spatial layouts and components that influence the prosperity of neighbourhood life (i.e. central points; clear flows in and out; places for people; a visual identity; shared open spaces; common eye on space; detailed design features). In particular, the street combined with the social activity that takes place on its frontage emerges as one key element of analysis in this stream of research. For Jacobs (1961), Appleyard (1981) and Sennett (1994), street layout and its properties affect the possibility and form of encounters between people. In contrast, Barton, Grant and Guise (2003) put people at the heart of creating sustainable neighbourhoods and communities. Barton suggests that while urban form can influence patterns of movement and interaction, so too can factors such as the way in which schools are designed or the existence of local associations. Barton looks at the social, economic and environmental factors that influence people’s quality of life and illustrates that to understand how sustainable communities can actually be achieved and maintained is a multifaceted, complex issue requiring an approach that is likewise multifaceted and complex.

A multidisciplinary research strategy

As multidisciplinary work thrives, innovative methods of data collection and measurement are slowly emerging within and between many disciplines. We outline an excellent example of how methodologies can be moulded and experimented with. VivaCity2020: Urban Sustainability for the 24 Hour City is a large multidisciplinary research project within the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE) consortium, aiming to develop an in-depth understanding of human behaviour in urban environments and to create new innovative tools and techniques to support sustainable design decision-making. A research strategy was developed to explore both the more experiential side of city centre living alongside the collection of quantitative data on the urban layout and form.

Example case study

An area within Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington, to the north-east of central London, was selected as a case study area. Clerkenwell is one of 16 wards located within the London Borough of Islington (see Figure 1.1.1). Parts of the ward (including Clerkenwell Green, the historical heart of the area) are designated as conservation areas by Islington Council, meaning that special planning policy applies to protect the diverse character of the ward. This area is residentially diverse, incorporating social housing alongside privately owned flats and houses, and is economically diverse with a variety of shops, workshops, wholesale, offices and entertainment facilities. The area was selected as an example of a diverse and viable urban neighbourhood.¹

An examination of the way in which this area has evolved and been transformed throughout its history c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• List of contributing authors
• Preface to the second edition
• Preface to the first edition
• Setting the scene
• Part 1 Introduction to urban environments
• Part 2 Energy and buildings
• Part 3 Buildings and environment
• Part 4 Operational performance of buildings
• Index