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Earthen building materials are a critical future for sustainable construction because they are locally available, minimally processed, and waste-free. However, despite their advantages, earthen materials still face challenges for comprehensive implementation. First, their technical data vary significantly, making it challenging to quantify their true performance for different climates and environmental contexts. Second, people mistakenly perceive these materials as low-tech and poor in their performance. Lastly, building codes and standards do not comprehensively represent these materials worldwide. This work identifies perceptual barriers that hold back the broader implementation of earthen materials in order to ascertain possible solutions and assess the performance of earthen buildings and perceived comfort among primary resources such as practicing professionals and people who live in earthen houses. The results of an online survey of 126 earthen building experts and homeowners are presented, providing important insights regarding a range of barriers to, and motivating factors for, the implementation of earthen materials, as well as design and thermal performance aspects of existing earthen homes. The results of the surveys show that, of the various earthen building techniques, light straw clay requires the lowest maintenance, and construction of adobe and/or clay plaster encountered the least barriers to implementation. The energy performance of existing earthen homes show that all types of earthen materials reduce the need for cooling, in all climate zones. Insulation over earthen walls was shown to increase occupants’ perceived comfort levels, but only slightly. Additional results provide significant recommendations for future research on thermal performance and comfort guidelines for earthen structures. This study contributes to the development of environmental and policy measures that could be used by policymakers by synthesizing technical and environmental data and by identifying means of improving the perception of natural building.

J The intelligent office building traditionally has been defined by a long list of new products in telecommunications, electronics, security, automation, and building control systems. Although the United States has [...]

This study proposes a generalized building energy and carbon emissions benchmarking approach. Leveraging eleven years of real-world data from twelve U.S. cities, an advanced ensemble learning model is employed to predict building site, source energy, and carbon emissions. The generalizability is validated across seven climate zones, yielding R2values ranging from 0.3 to 0.9. Additionally, a post-prediction analysis method is proposed that categorizes actual and predicted values into well-estimated, underestimated, and overestimated groups by an [−15%, 15%] acceptance interval (AI). This approach allows for assessing predictions related to energy, building types, and climate zones. The findings indicate the feasibility of a reliable generalized benchmarking tool. It’s been observed that energy in most underestimated groups tends to be higher than that of their overestimated counterparts. Over 63% of buildings' predictions perform within the well-estimated group by [−15%, 15%] AI.

Office workers tend to waste energy at work due to little motivation for saving energy. This study investigates the effectiveness of online feedback (e.g., self-monitoring, advice, comparison) and control strategies (e.g., online remote control, scheduled control) that can promote voluntary energy conservation in the workplace. Eighty office workers were divided into four groups, and feedback and control interventions were field-tested for 9 months. Baseline data was collected for 14 weeks; different interventions were given to the four groups for 13 weeks and then removed from the groups for 11 weeks. During and after the interventions occurred, the groups that had online controls achieved more energy savings than the groups that had no online controls. While there were no statistical energy savings with computer usage before and after the intervention, the monitor, light, and phone devices showed significant savings as a result. Surveys and interviews were also conducted after the experiment to learn the participants’ behavior and intentions. The findings discussed are based on their responses.

The federal government has long been one of the biggest supporters of projects designed with the triple bottom line of sustainability--economic, environmental, and social--in mind. The General Services Administration requires [...]

Arabic-Islamic Cities Building and Planning Principles CITATION Project: Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles This research has three major parts. The first part consists of a study of Islamic law [...]

Project Design Phase Analysis Gary Walter Siebein Project: Project Design Phase Analysis Techniques for Predicting the Acoustical Qualities of Buildings. This research had a two-fold purpose: to study how architectural [...]

The Building Systems Integration Handbook The American Institute of Architects Project: The Building Systems Integration Handbook This book examines the integration of systems within buildings from a variety of perspectives. [...]

Solar-5: A Micro-Computer Design Tool CITATION Project: Solar-5: A Micro-Computer Design Tool Solar-5, the first computer program to win a P/A research citation, is a design tool that enables architects [...]

Design that Cares AWARD Carpman Grant Associates Deborah Anne Simmons Project: Design That Cares: Planning Health Facilities for Patients and Visitors Based on five years of research at the University [...]