Building Science

Concepts and Applications

Jens Pohl

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119787761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Design

With the improved efficiency of heating, cooling and lighting in buildings crucial to the low carbon targets of all current governments, Building Science: Concepts and Applications provides a timely and much-needed addition to the existing literature on architectural and environmental design education. Taking a logical and didactic approach, the author introduces the reader to the underlying concepts and principles of the thermal, lighting, and acoustic determinants of building design in four integrated sections.

The first section explores the thermal building environment and the principles of thermal comfort, translating these principles into conceptual building design solutions. The author examines the heat flow characteristics of the building envelope and explains steady state design methods that form the basis of most building codes. He discusses the sun as a natural heat source and describes the principles of active and passive solar building design solutions.

The second section introduces the scientific principles of light, color, and vision, stressing the importance of daylight in building design, presenting the Daylight Factor design concept and methodology, and discussing glare conditions and their avoidance. It also addresses artificial lighting, delving into the prominent role that electricity plays in the production of light by artificial means and comparing the efficacy and characteristics of the various commercially available light sources in terms of the energy to light conversion ratio, life span, available intensity range, color rendition properties, and cost.

The third section deals with the various aspects of sound that impact the design of the built environment, discussing the nature of sound as a physical force that sets any medium through which it travels into vibration and laying the foundations for the treatment of sound as an important means of communication as well as a disruptive disturbance.

The final section discusses the foundational concepts of ecological design as a basis for addressing sustainability issues in building design solutions. These issues include the embedded energy of construction materials, waste management, preservation of freshwater and management of graywater, adoption of passive solar principles, energy saving measures applicable to mechanical building services, and the end-of-lifecycle deconstruction and recycling of building materials and components.

• Covers the fundamental building science topics of heat, energy, light and sound
• Takes a logical and didactic approach, tracing the historical roots of building science
• Includes summaries of new technologies in solar energy and photovoltaic systems
• Features a section on the principles of sustainable architecture
• Website with answers to MC questions testing students' learning

1
Technical Underpinnings in Mathematics and Physics

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The field of building science is based on scientific concepts and principles. This does not mean, however, that an in-depth knowledge of science and mathematics is necessarily required for the application of sound building-science principles during the building design process. In most cases an understanding of the higher-level technical notions involved is sufficient for the designer to make the necessary decisions during the early design stages, when the conceptual design solution is formulated. However, it is most important that those decisions are sound, so that they can be translated into detailed solutions during later design stages by consultants with specialized expertise.

Accordingly, the purpose of this book is to describe and explain the underlying concepts and principles of the thermal, lighting, and acoustic determinants of building design, without delving into the detailed methods that are applied by engineers and other technical consultants to design and implement detailed system solutions. Nevertheless, there are some basic mathematical methods and scientific principles that the reader should be familiar with to easily follow the largely qualitative treatment of the subject matter of the subsequent chapters. The particular mathematical methods that are briefly reviewed include elementary linear equations and normal distribution statistics. In respect to Physics the fundamental concepts related to temperature scales and black body radiation have been selected for explanation in this introductory chapter, because they form the basis of discussions related to the thermal determinants of building design and artificial light sources, respectively.

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1.1 Linear equations

Many problem systems in environmental design, planning, engineering, and management may be defined in terms of a set of equations or algorithms that can be solved mathematically. Naturally, the method of solution, the kind of solutions, and the question of solvability (i.e., whether or not the set of equations has a solution) will depend largely on the types of equations involved. We shall therefore briefly describe a simple, but also quite typical, type of equation known as the linear equation.

Also referred to as first-degree equations, linear equations obey the following two rules:

Rule 1: All variables or unknown quantities ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• 1 Technical Underpinnings in Mathematics and Physics
• 2 Principles of Thermal Comfort
• 3 Thermal Control by Building Design
• 4 Heat Flow and Thermal Insulation
• 5 Solar Energy: The Beckoning Opportunity
• 6 Light, Color, and Vision
• 7 Daylight Design Principles
• 8 Artificial Lighting
• 9 The Nature of Sound
• 10 Room Acoustics
• 11 Noise Control and Insulation
• 12 Sustainable Architecture Concepts and Principles
• References and Further Reading
• Keyword Index
• End User License Agreement