PLEA

A gradual increase in earth’s temperature is becoming a reality faced nowadays. Communities in informal settlements or deprived neighbourhoods living in buildings of poor quality are the most vulnerable to indoor heat stresses. Six test cubes were constructed on the rooftop of a residential building in Cairo, Egypt. Ten different thermal roof insulation ideas were tested and experimented in an urban living lab setting under real climate conditions. The 10 solutions were tested during peak summer hours and their efficiency was monitored along two consequent time intervals, where 5 solutions were monitored at a time. The two best solutions were tested again in winter. This experimental study showed that using reed mats and reed crate with wet burlap can reduce temperatures up to 3.5 degrees compared to conventional roof construction methods. The feasibility of the proposed solutions, their cost efficiency and their maintenance were discussed. We hope this experimental study can be scaled up to help vulnerable groups in informal or deprived areas to reduce their level of suffering from indoor heat stress. Low-tech and low-cost roof insulation can offer adequate thermal comfort for marginalized populations.

According to a UN report, by 2050, the world’s population will reach around 9.7 billion. This growth, alongside a changing climate, will strain natural resources, especially the food supply chain. There will also be issues in relation to human health, education and well-being, due to people’s growing distance from food supply. Previous projects have sought a solution to these problems through vertical farming. Producing food within an urban environment suggests a different worldview for the next generation of living and a new urban lifestyle. In collaboration with SOM, this project explores the feasibility of using a network of hybrid farms to address London’s growth challenges. The research included solar studies of 3 building geometries in the identified farming zones within the building. The thermal analysis, conducted in studied areas, revealed that the optimum footprint is a square geometry. As an example, the lettuce was chosen to quantify and compare the production potential, food miles, energy and water consumption between the main farming systems. The building’s design maximises daylight and sunlight access in order to produce vegetables using the least amount of artificial energy. In this manner, the hybrid farms minimise energy demand, water consumption, transportation distances and land use.

Data centers (DCs) bring important positive economic impacts to the cities and regions where they are established, however, in exchange of a high electricity consumption, which in the end is transformed into unused waste-heat. Only 10% of the DCs in Sweden utilize their waste-heat by generally plugging it into the district heating (DH) network. Despite having a DH tradition in most of Swedish cities, DC waste-heat utilization is not a rule. Data center strategical planning and urban strategical planning should be well coordinated, in order to offer alternative strategies to integrate the DCs waste-heat inside the local sectors/ services constellation in need of heat. Therefore this paper will focus on understanding how the urban planning practice can support DC’s waste heat utilization by proposing an urban scale analytical approach to identify factors in relation to spatial and energy resource planning at a municipal level that may facilitate the DCs’ waste heat utilization in cities.