
The Airshell Prototype
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
Relationship Analysis and Optimisation of Space Layout to Improve the Energy Performance of Office Buildings
Architectural space layout has proven to be influential on building energy performance. However, the relationship between different space layouts and their consequent energy demands has not yet been systematically studied. This study thoroughly investigates such a relationship.
In order to do so, a computational method was developed, which includes a method to generate space layouts featuring energy‐related variables and an assessment method for energy demand. Additionally, a design of experiments was performed, and its results were used to analyse the relation‐ ship between space layouts and energy demands.
In order to identify their relationship, four types of design indicators of space layout were proposed, both forthe overall layout and for each function. Finally, several optimisations were performed to minimise heating, cooling and lighting demands.
The optimisation results showed that the maximum reduction between different layouts was up to 54% for lighting demand, 51% for heating demand and 38% for cooling demand. The relationship analysis shows that when comparing the four types of design indicators, the façade area‐to‐floor area ratio showed a stronger correlation with energy demands than the façade area ratio, floor area ratio and height‐to‐depth ratio.
Overall, this study shows that designing a space layout helps to reduce energy demands for heating, cooling and lighting, and also provides a reference for other researchers and designers to optimise space layout with improved energy performance.
Space layout design is one of the most important tasks in architectural design, taking place around ‘scheme design’ and ‘design development’ in the early design phase. It refers to the allocation of different functions within the building plan, and it is based on the placement of interior partitions as well as exterior walls. Some studies showed that space layout impacts building energy performance greatly.
space layout has proven to have an impact on building energy performance. However, the relationship between different space layouts and the consequent energy demands has not been systematically studied, and few studies have applied PCA to space layout design.
In order to solve this research gap, this paper presents a study for identifying the relationship between space layout and energy performance and for illustrating how to optimise space layout design with improved energy performance, as well as investigating how much energy demand can be reduced from the optimisation.
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
In this paper by Gregory Charles Quinn, Chris J K Williams, and Christoph Gengnagel, a detailed comparison is carried out between established as well as novel erection methods for strained grid shells by means of FE simulations and a 3D-scanned scaled physical model in order to evaluate key performance criteria such as bending stresses during erection and the distance between shell nodes and their spatial target geometry.
In this paper by Frederic Tayeb, Olivier Baverel, Jean-François Caron, Lionel du Peloux, ductility aspects of a light-weight composite gridshell are developed.
In this paper by Julian Lienhard, Holger Alpermann, Christoph Gengnagel and Jan Knippers structures that actively use bending as a self forming process are reviewed.
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