Author Archives: admin
Nimish Patel – An Obituary.
The architect Nimish Patel (1948 -2018) was a highly regarded champion of the value of traditional construction techniques and skills, combining innovation and conservation, to contemporary architecture. At the PLEA Conference in Ahmedabad in 2014 his outstanding contribution was recognised … Continue reading
Assessing the Glare Potential of Complex Fenestration Systems: a Heuristic Approach Based on Spatial and Time Sampling
This paper proposes a new heuristic to simulate and study the visual comfort aspect in the designing of Complex Fenestration Systems. The goal of the heuristic is two-folded, (i) provide useful and simple visualization tools for preliminary glare assessments of … Continue reading
Physical Monitoring of Replacement Infill Panels for Historic Timber-Framed Buildings in the UK: Comparing hygrothermal simulations and dual climate chamber testing
With the aim of reducing carbon emissions and increasing hygrothermal comfort, buildings across the UK are undergoing energy retrofits. With historic buildings, it is important that retrofit actions have a limited negative impact on the building’s fabric and cultural significance. … Continue reading
Occupant Satisfaction in 60 Radiant and All-air Buildings
Radiant heating and cooling systems have the potential to save energy and are widely used in zero net energy buildings. Their positive and negative impacts on indoor environmental quality and, in particular, thermal comfort compared to all-air systems are still … Continue reading
Assessment of ThermODrain system on Thermal Comfort – Study of a Multi-storied Office Building in Nashik, India
A ThermO-Drain (TOD) is a system that uses water cooled by night sky to drain the radiant heat within a building. In office buildings, ‘all air-cooled’ systems are most prevalent. The study aimed to assess the thermal comfort of occupants … Continue reading
Experimental Biases in Discomfort Glare Evaluations
The multiple criterion scale developed by Hopkinson is extensively utilised to analyse the subjective degree of discomfort due to glare. Using a luminance adjustment procedure, the brightness of a glare source is adjusted to reveal four levels of discomfort, typically: … Continue reading
Post-earthquake Earth House Won World Building of the Year 2017 at World Architecture Festival
Photo credit: World Architecture Festival 2017 An anti-seismic earth house in Guangming Village, Yunnan built by Professor Edward Ng (PLEA President) and his One University One Village (1U1V) team at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has been awarded … Continue reading
PLEA 2018@Hong Kong
PLEA 2018 Conference – Call for abstracts now! More information: PLEA 2018 Conference Website
PLEA 2017 Final Proceedings are now available!
Three volumes of PLEA 2017 Final Proceedings are now available at Conference Proceedings.
Overheating and health risks in refugee shelters: assessment and relative importance of design parameters
There are now more than four million refugees living in camps around the world. The majority of such camps are within inhospitable environments, often with extreme climates. This paper focuses on the thermal conditions of shelters in the Azraq refugee camp (Jordan), … Continue reading