The environmental performance of urban building

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Fazia Ali Toudert
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: from 2006 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 24882085

Urban sustainability is a challenging issue within the 21th century. Urban planners and designers increasingly face up to produce environmentally high quality (EHQ) urban buildings which effectively reduce the global energy consumption and gas emissions. The present project is primarily motivated by the will to link between urban and architectural scales with respect to climate. It seeks to contribute towards a deeper understanding of the interdependence between the environmental performance of urban buildings, i.e. their energy efficiency, and their surrounding built-up context and hence microclimate. To do so, a number of urban structures are investigated with various urban canyon geometries and building properties (height-to-width ratio, solar orientation, building envelope, materials, etc.). First, the urban microclimate changes due to the urban structure itself is assessed including thermal, irradiation components and wind flow, as these constitute the actual ambient climate under which the urban building performs. Secondly, thermal conditions, passive solar gains, day-lighting potential and heating/cooling loads are quantitatively investigated for one urban building located in various urban structures and assessed for variable building describers. The final goal is to provide to the planner and architect applicable guidelines useful at early design stages which optimize the use of renewable energy through a successive methodology.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Host: Professor Dr.-Ing. Helmut F.O. Müller