International Journal of Architectural Engineering & Urban Planning
Volume:24 Issue: 2, Dec 2014

One of the most important methods of saving energy and providing indoor comfort conditions of buildings is the careful design of the façades. A “double skin glass façade” is optimally one of the best options that control the heat interaction between indoor and outdoor spaces. Two kinds of heating energy is usually transmitted through exterior envelope; “conduction” and “radiation”. Double skin glass façades (DSFg) are designed to manage these energies and in some special conditions, can prepare determined convection. The total solar radiation energy that can be received into the interior space, is one of the most important parameters for estimating the cooling load of the building and its occupants’ thermal comfort. DSFg also provides flexibility in architectural design. Recently, it has been more attention to double skin glass façades opposed to the most typically curtain walls for its ability to efficiently reduce energy consumption and therefore save cost. The design of the double skin glass façade involves decisions of geometric parameters, glass selection, ventilation strategy, shading, daylighting, wind loads, and maintenance and cleaning cost expectations. In this article, the authors intend to investigate features of double skin glass facade in reducing air pollution, air conditioning, fire safety and in the optimal use of sunlight within the building. In another part, this article will pay attention to the effect of wind, shading, type of glass and ventilation in the space between skins on the performance of double skin glass façade and their effect on energy saving. Finally, the authors analyze the rate of energy transfer from the double skin glass facade and provide four case studies. In addition, this paper shall review previous studies done on DSFg systems in building for saving energy.

Day lighting is one of the important qualitative factors in housing, which is also effective on health and well-being of occupants. Extensive glass surfaces and Transparency in building facades provides good daylight quantity for interior spaces. However, this lighting system is not appropriate for climates faced with higher sunlight radiation (Such as hot-humid areas), due to overheating and disturbing the thermal comfort. There are efficient day lighting strategies in the traditional Iranian architecture as one of the valuable remaining heritages of Human experiences, which are useful for contemporary architecture. This article intends to investigate daylight quality in the houses of Bushehr from Qajar period by modeling and simulating in daylight calculation software (Dialux) and identify day lighting strategies utilized in these houses. As Bushehr city is located in the hot-humid region of Iran, is faced with high sunlight radiation, making balance between receiving light and heat gain through windows needs careful attention. The houses of Qajar period in Bushehr are evolved samples of traditional architecture in the city and Rashidy house (built in 1893) is one of them which its form and details can reveal many lessons on coping with climate by merely using renewable energies.

The rapidly growing world energy use has already raised concerns over energy resources and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since the global contribution from residential buildings towards energy consumption, has steadily increased between 20% and 40% and as large openings have considerable energy and heat loss in dwellings, this paper establishes a coefficient of heat loss and air infiltration through large openings in 10 historic dwellings (Qajar and Pahlavi era) in Tabriz, Iran. The results show that although Qajar era houses have larger windows than Pahlavi era equivalents, the rate of heat loss of openings per square meter of facades (Ĥ) and the air infiltration per square meter of facades (FA) of openings for Pahlavi era houses is more than the Qajar era equivalents. Therefore Openings of Qajar era houses have been designed more efficient than those of the Pahlavi era. Although the generally accepted way of building energy saving houses in cold climate has been to use small windows, the results indicates that instead of exploiting small openings in facades, it is possible to enlarge the windows to get better lighting conditions and simultaneously decrease the area of openings per square meter of facades for lower heat loss through these openings.

It is claimed that perception is the result of objective measurement and subjective reaction, when people immerse in an environment. This statement is the main theme of this paper. This study tries to set a framework in analyzing built environment that is to comply with human perceptive processes. The approach of this article presents a methodology to assess the perceptual environment. The paper initially reviews the literatures that deal with perception theory and perceptual procedures. As a case study, a part of historic Noghan Bazzar in Mashhad has been examined to understand how people''s perception and behavior can be directly influenced by landscape features. To explore this relationship a research technique has been employed that employs perceptual assessment survey by experts. Some measures introduced in this paper are useful to understand how environmental qualities, as well as patterns and combinations of particular qualities, affect people’s perceptions of landscape. The outcomes would be the identification of a connection between the designed, physical aspects and the subjective sense of environment. The result of this study could be employed as a research technique to analyze the built environment in order to recommend design solutions, especially for valuable old heritage fabrics of cities that encompass common memorable spaces and convey common social values.

As a common space, urban entrance is the first place that introduces a city to its visitors and it is imprinted in the memory of people. This study aims to provide a detailed analysis of physical development and activity patterns along the main entrance of Rasht, Iran. Utilized data in this research comes from a questionnaire survey through which 707 land lots along the main entrances were studied. A number of statistical methods including nonparametric test of Kruskal-Wallis and crosscorrelation analysis were used to analyze the collected data. Findings indicated that entrance axes in Rasht present a low density pattern, in the form of single row shops with sporadic low rise buildings and uneven distribution of activities mainly by auto- related shops and services. dala aeatsysy aaaaataD a significant difference in the development of physical elements such as density of land lots, lot size, building age, quality of structure and land use/activity pattern among the main entrances. Data results also showed that density of development along the entrances is associated with land use type and ownership. Moreover, the data showed that the age of a building is correlated with quality of structure, land use type and ownership and quality of structure is related with land use type and ownership. Adopting a number of urban planning approaches such as density increase, encouraging mixed land uses, and employing local architectural styles in building design could enhance the exterior outlook, increase the land value, expedite investments and eventually improve the economy along the entrance axes.

According to several researches sustainable development is based on three different dimensions of sustainability; social and economical dimensions and ecological or environmental sustainability. These dimensions are recognized as basic elements of sustainable development. This research tries to evaluate social sustainability at some neighborhoods in Karaj. Considering the fact that urban neighborhoods, as the smallest units of cities have a high importance in cities and their sustainability are a positive step toward sustainable development as well as social cohesion of city. In this research five neighborhoods have been selected with 320 questionnaires for sampling. Assessment of the related variables was made through determining a collection of indicators. The collected data via specialist questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS software. The reason for which Kendall’s test was selected to study the meaningfulness relationship of the research variables and the concept of social sustainability is the largeness and qualitative feature of the N volume. The result of the research is the proving meaningfulness of the relationship between the defined variables and the notion of social sustainability except social participation. Level of social Sustainability in the neighborhoods are not the same and there is high gap between them (about 2.6).In addition education indicator has the highest level of sustainability between the neighborhoods (0.024). Access to the recreational facilities indicated the highest level of difference between sustainable and unsustainable neighborhoods (74%). This means that even in sustainable neighborhoods despite the dependency and happiness of the residents, the rate of participation has been at a low level and the residents do not have a positive view resulted from confidence to the performance of civil managers. In other words, there is a kind of homogenization in this component between urban neighborhoods.

There is abundant literature regarding virtual reality as a technology of interest in the present age. However, there are few comprehensive studies on strategies that can improve the level of urban design research using this technique. To investigate the issue, this paper first reviews the concept of virtual reality. Next, the opinions of experts in the field of virtual reality technology are summed up and key elements needed to create a virtual reality experience and key operators that establish the actual interaction of users with virtual environments are discussed. The use of Virtual Reality Modeling (VRM) in the urban design process and is also elaborated on. Uses of this technique in urban projects and advantages and limitations of its use in the field are discussed. Finally, the paper attempts to provide practical solutions and strategies to improve the quality of semi experiments developed virtual environment. This can improve the results and findings of research conducted with the technique. Strategies discussed in this article have been mostly derived from practical experience and research in recent years by the author. They can help provide a more robust analysis and reduce the errors made in the virtual environment.