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Buildings as urban climate infrastructure: A framework for designing building forms and facades that mitigate urban heat

Loh, Nolan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1553513750865168

Abstract Details

2019, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
A novel architectural design framework built around a massing tool and evolutionary search algorithm is proposed to balance indoor and outdoor environmental conditions and demonstrate the potential for buildings to act as urban climate infrastructure by mitigating heat in dense urban environments. Within these environments, urban heat islands (UHI) are created when building forms, facades and other urban surfaces collectively lower urban cooling rates by altering radiation balances, airflow and moisture levels while increasing anthropogenic heat production. UHIs are associated with human health issues and other negative effects and are exacerbated by warming climates and extreme weather events. Existing UHI research and mitigation strategies address facade design (improved thermal properties, implementation of vegetation), but formal studies are conducted on larger scales than architects can implement into individual building designs. The proposed framework expands upon existing early-stage architectural design methods to balance considerations of indoor and outdoor environments by generating voxelized building form and facades designs, analyzing each design using environmental simulations and evaluating the population of designs using an evolutionary search algorithm. Indoor environments are evaluated based on energy use intensity (EUI) and unusable daylight levels (uD). Microclimate conditions are evaluated using the Universal Thermal Climate Index model for outdoor thermal comfort (OTC). The massing tool is composed of scripts that generate sets of control points to alter building massing and distribute facade materials. This approach is flexible enough to pursue a wide array of massing and facade configurations but sufficiently constrained to provide architecturally feasible designs within specific site conditions. Environmental performance simulations analyze microclimate conditions outside and environmental conditions within each iteration. Performance data is passed to an evolutionary search algorithm that determines which parameters to pass to the next population of designs. This process repeats until the user-defined stopping criteria is met. Quantitative information regarding the environmental criteria and building characteristics is used along with qualitative assessments of the design iterations to select a single iteration to develop. Prior to developing the building form and facade, a conceptual building core and column placement can be established to incorporate design considerations relaxed at the start of the framework. Application of the framework was demonstrated in the development of an alternative design for a 56-story core and shell office tower in downtown Chicago, IL. The framework successfully ran 171 times over three populations. During the hottest week of the year, the generated designs improved outdoor thermal comfort by up to 1.26C, energy use intensity by up to 0.79 kWh/m2 and unusable daylight by up to 50.90% compared to the existing tower design. The framework established site-specific massing strategies that can mitigate urban heat and improve indoor environment conditions. Architecture firms could use the framework as a massing tool during early stages of design or government bodies could use the framework to inform urban developments.
Christoph Klemmt, A.A. Dipl. (Committee Chair)
Pravin Bhiwapurkar (Committee Member)
72 p.
Architecture
urban microclimate; heat mitigation; massing studies; evolutionary search algorithm; core and shell office design

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Loh, N. (2019). Buildings as urban climate infrastructure: A framework for designing building forms and facades that mitigate urban heat [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1553513750865168

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Loh, Nolan. Buildings as urban climate infrastructure: A framework for designing building forms and facades that mitigate urban heat. 2019. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1553513750865168.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Loh, Nolan. "Buildings as urban climate infrastructure: A framework for designing building forms and facades that mitigate urban heat." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1553513750865168

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1553513750865168
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.