Architecture

This article questions the myth of the tulou as a "defensive" architectural tradition, with a focus on the period of the Chinese Civil War. By examining the evolution of the building form, changing political circumstances, and the social struggles of local communities, it argues that although the tulou construction tradition was constantly transmitted, the building form was adapted to different uses through history, and therefore constituted very different architectural traditions over time. This is why so-called "tulou fortresses" were no longer favored as defensive positions in twentieth-century warfare.

The article presents the results of a laboratory study conducted at Shanghai Tongji University. The study compares participants' mood and task performance between naturally-lit and artificially-lit environments, with a view to identify negative impacts, such as lighting variation and temperature asymmetry caused by dynamic natural light. It was observed that the mood change in the naturally-lit environment was more significant, especially the decrease of positive mood, than in the artificially-lit environment. For the subjects in the naturally-lit environment, performance scores decreased with increase in the light intensity and temperature asymmetry. Based on the study results, suitable daylighting design was recommended for classrooms or offices.

Pro-environment behaviors play a key role in advancing the development of green buildings. This study investigated the link between two green building pro-environment behaviors that require dissimilar resources: energy savings that do not require money in order to be more environmentally friendly and willingness to pay that involves economic resources including spending money in order to be more environmentally friendly. This study points out that the two pro-environment behaviors can be positively linked to each other. People who behave in an environmentally friendly manner at work would also be likely to pay an extra cost for a green building when buying a new home. The consistency of the two pro-environment behaviors can be explained by their common environmental beliefs: limits to growth and eco-crisis. The green building movement should prioritize pro-environmental behaviors and associated environmental beliefs to support green building policies, guidelines, and tools. commercial and institutional buildings, using the dataset provided by the New Buildings Institute and the U.S. Green Buildings Council. On average, LEED buildings used 18-39% less energy per floor area than their conventional counterparts. However, 28-35% of LEED buildings used more energy than their conventional counterparts. The studies pointed out that differing occupancy hours and loads were the main factors that caused LEED buildings to not perform well. Gill et al. conducted a post-occupancy evaluation of the highest-rated U.K. EcoHomes site. The detailed post-occupancy evaluation investigated the energy performance of the buildings, water consumption, and the comfort and satisfaction of users. Results indicated that energy-efficiency behaviors account for 51%, 37%, and 11% of the variance in heat, electricity, and water consumption, respectively, between dwellings. Scofield [9] investigated energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and Energy Performance Rating data for 953 office buildings in New York City. Twenty-one of these office buildings were identified as LEED-certified, providing the opportunity for direct comparison of energy performance data for LEED and non-LEED buildings of the same type, time frame, and geographical and climate region. The LEED-certified buildings, collectively, showed no savings compared to non-LEED buildings. LEED Silver and Certified office buildings underperformed other office buildings, suggesting that the LEED building certification is not moving the city toward its goal of climate change mitigation. Increasing concern and controversy surrounding the actual performance of green or sustainable buildings exists . These studies also suggested that the gap arises not because green building design, tools, techniques or technologies are 'wrong', but because of what happens in reality; buildings do not use energy, but people do . A green building becomes greenwash if it relies on technological solutions, such as solar panels and thermal insulation, while maintaining intensive energy use habits. Good use behaviors can significantly reduce energy consumption .

In Southeast Asia with tropical climates, Chinese Shophouse (CSH) as a type of vernacular architecture is usually equipped with small intermediate air-well type courtyards, also known as 'Tianjin', to moderate the indoor thermal environment. This paper investigates the effectiveness of air-well type courtyards as passive design strategies on moderating indoor thermal environments in two CSHs located in Malacca, Malaysia. The study used a field survey and a CFD simulation. Statistical analyses of indoor air temperature and heat index (HI) measured at different locations of the CSHs show that intermediate spaces next to the air-wells had significantly lower air temperature and HI. Cross ventilation through the openings on the walls and air-wells resulted in a significantly lower normalized mean age of air and higher air velocity. The air-well is a suitable passive design strategy to reduce overheating during daytime and to increase cooling of building structure during night-time. The air-well courtyards should be arranged in alignment with the prevailing wind to maximize the cross ventilation and passive cooling.

The research aims to envision the next generation green building. It starts from a critical review of green building concepts and practices. The critiques mainly come from two perspectives: one is triple bottom line and the other is regenerative design, which require that green building should take a holistic approach to sustainability as well as raise its benchmark. Revisiting green building rating systems (such as LEED), the article found that the green building concept and framework is being evolved to embrace sustainability critiques not in a way of bringing in more ambiguous, complicate indicators but through leverage, linkage and contextualization. This article also argues that the rhetoric debate on triple bottom line and regenerative design does not help to push forward building practices towards more sustainable built environments. It is more important to evolve the current engineering approach (thermal insulation and efficiency) to benchmarking and measuring building performance. An ecological approach (thermal dissipation and filtration) is anticipated for next generation green building practices.

Green open space is addressed as an important urban planning strategy to ameliorate the negative environmental impacts of high density. The article presents a comparative study of green open space development models and associated use behaviors between Hong Kong and Singapore. The two cities represent two distinct models: ''Concrete Jungle'' where green open spaces are separated from built-up areas and ''Garden City'' where green open spaces are integrated in buildings. The research argues that the two distinct urban development models are shaping two types of use behaviors. The detached green open space in Hong Kong engendered active visits with high intentions and sensations; the integrated green open spaces in Singapore, on the other hand, caused passive visits with low intentions and sensations. This research draws attention to the overwhelming greenery in urban development that might attenuate the therapeutic function for healing and restoration. The spatial arrangement of green space distribution should encourage people's intentions and aspirations for an active visit with social or physical activities. The planning and design of open space should also optimize microclimate conditions (such as shading, cross-ventilation and thermal comfort) to facilitate longer stays.

There is a growing concern in high-dense Asian cities that the large population and limited green open space might cause negative influences on human health and well-being. The objective of this paper is to investigate: (a) to what extend the site configuration could ameliorate the outdoor microclimate; (b) the relationship between the subjective environmental perception and the objective site configuration; and (3) design guidelines and planning practices based on linking the site configurations, microclimate conditions, and users' perceptions. The methods are mainly based on microclimate measurement and self-administered questionnaire survey in selected green open spaces in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is found that the level of space enclosure and the greenery density are significantly associated with outdoor microclimate conditions and use behaviours, such as visit pattern, sensation, and healing evaluation of the green open space in dense urban contexts. The high-density urban morphology could become advantageous in the tropical and subtropical Asian cities if it is well planned and designed. The typology of green open space being embedded in buildings could be a sensible design solution for land efficiency, microclimate optimization and positive use experience.

This chapter articulates how the way of working changed the interiority of office buildings and how it is shaping the space between office buildings. The modern office building was originated from bringing workers together in one location, which resulted in gigantic corporate architecture. However, the gigantism did not produce urban rhythm or urbanism due to the Taylorist management. With the human relation movement that emphasised natural groups and social relations to ameliorate hierarchical tensions and to sustain high productivity, workplace was designed to encourage spontaneous, serendipitous social encounter via blurring boundaries of circulation, working and services. The intensive social activities within an office building, representing urban rhythm, significantly changed the building's interiority. The advancement of communication technologies brought forth portable worksphere and nomadic working-style, which engendered a new relationship between office workers and public realm in cities.

There is a growing concern about human factors in green building, which is imperative in high-rise high-density urban environments. This paper describes our attempts to explore the influence of workplace green features (such as green certification, ventilation mode, and building morphology) on health perceptions (personal sensation, sensorial assumptions, healing performance) based on a survey in Hong Kong and Singapore. The results validated the relationship between green features and health perceptions in the workplace environment. Remarkably, participants from the air-conditioned offices revealed significant higher concerns about health issues than those participants from the mixed-ventilated offices. The mixed-ventilation design performs as a bridge to connect the indoor environment and outdoor space, which enables people to have contact with nature. Additionally, the preferred building morphology of the workplace is the pattern of a building complex instead of a single building. The complex form integrates the configuration of courtyards, podium gardens, green terrace, public plaza, and other types of open spaces with the building clusters, which contributes to better health perceptions. This research contributes to the rationalization and optimization of passive climate-adaptive design strategies for green buildings in high-density tropical or subtropical cities.

Purpose -This paper aims to examine the concept and practice of green building for office interiors: whether the green intent can be effectively implemented in an interior retrofitting project. Design/methodology/approach -Reviewing green building rating systems for interiors, examining certified interior projects and interviewing occupants working in certified green offices. Findings -The green building credits for interiors fall into three relational layers: the urban context, the host building and interior fit-outs. Most projects under study performed well on credits for interior fit-outs (e.g. low emitting materials, energy efficient equipment and appliances, etc.), while underperformed on credits for its host building (e.g. air-conditioning systems, ventilation, etc.). The latter might more significantly affect working experience. The other important green aspects, such as daylight availability, facilities accessibility, might be subject to its location and urban context.

The study aimed to evaluate several shading schemes at access zone of the tunnel entrance of HZMB in order to find the best scenario to increase the user lighting comfort. The study analysed the luminance at the tunnel entrance (L20) and energy saving in the thereshold zone. For these analyses, four shading schemes have been simulated. The schemes were the Original Scheme (Zebra, 50% solid & 50% transparent), Option 1 (Gradation Glass), Option 2 (Perforated Material), and Option 3 (No Shading). The results shows that the Original scheme has the lowest L20 luminance and consequently the highest lighting energy saving. While the Option 3 (No Shading) has the highest L20 luminance and consequently the lowest lighting energy saving.

This research proposes the use of colour-changing light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires to supplement daylight for more sensory working or living environments. An experiment was conducted to examine a room lit by a mixture of natural light from window walls and artificial light from LED luminaires which could be programmed to produce four colour lights: orange (correlated colour temperature around 2000 K), yellow (around 3000 K), green (around 7000 K) and blue (around 8000 K). Participants were required to answer questions pertaining to function (naturalness of selected objects) and sensation (brightness, relaxation, pleasantness and interest). Generally, when daylight was mixed with warm colour, such as orange or yellow, the room was more interesting. Further comparison pointed out that the green light might have a negative effect for daylight perception. The most important finding is that when daylight was supplemented with the blue LED luminaires, the room was most relaxing, pleasing and natural, which was preferred by participants. The findings of this research would inform architects, designers to decide on how to use coloured luminaires as a supplementary light source for daylight to enhance sensory experience in buildings.

This paper examines the architectural and landscape design strategies and intentions for green, open spaces facilities targeting stress alleviation for learning environments such as those of university campuses in a compact urban setting. Literature reviews provide three prevailing perspectives for physical design pedagogical operatives: healing gardens where greenery and plants produce restorative effects; flexible spaces that accommodate functional needs of different activities; and green buildings that incorporate open space as a catalyst for integrated eco-system. Corresponding design approaches (landscape design, spatial design and green design) are scrutinized by case study. A comparison of two university campuses with different urban contexts is conducted to identify challenges and opportunities for applying these design approaches. For a compact campus, high-dense surroundings may limit the size of an open space and may handicap circulation and accessibility; on the other side, a small open space may provide its users more intimate contact with natural restorative elements and also a more controllable microclimate for physical comfort. A healthy campus should encompass diverse open spaces to satisfy different purposes. Finally, a framework that integrates the three approaches is combined to produce a sustainable design rubric.

Based on the theory of "alliesthesia", there is a gap between how people evaluate an environmental stimulus and how they actually react to the stimulus that changes the state of the interior milieu. Occupants preferred a low illuminance for comfort without or with less stimulation, but the comfortable setting might fail to generate productive environments because comfort is a reference to elimination of discomfort, which assumes that absence of stimulus (such as brightness) is good. A lighting experiment is conducted to identify the gap between comfortable and stimulating illuminance settings. Participants were asked to conduct a visual task and to respond a questionnaire under different illuminances ranging from below 200 Lux to above 900 Lux. The illuminance setting (401e500 Lux) on which subjects felt neutral and most comfortable well complied with current lighting standards. However, the illuminance setting (above 900 Lux) on which subjects scored highly in the visual task and perceived the visual task stimulating was much higher than the most comfortable and neutral setting. As an alternative to pursuing comfort based on neutrality, this article argues designing stimulating environments with restorative elements for productivity and well-being.

One of the important reasons for the interest in green buildings is that the employees can benefit from healthy and productive work environments. This research aims to provide evidence that can affect design decisions by a literature review and an occupant survey. Three important design decisions (green certifications, ventilation types and office types) were investigated through a standard occupant survey in China. Highly rated green buildings could be effective to provide a comfortable, healthy and productive work environment. Mixed-mode ventilation (a hybrid approach to space conditioning that uses a combination of natural ventilation and mechanical systems) and high cubicles (open-plan offices with high partitions) are sensible choices for green buildings to achieve high environmental satisfactions.

Open space can be stress alleviating and healing through the appropriate enclosure. Based on theories about environmental preferences and empirical studies on spatial enclosure, this study examined the relationship between environmental preference indicators and enclosure of urban public open spaces in Hong Kong. The preference indicators including four perceptual attributes and feedbacks on six feelings were evaluated together with the spatial enclosure of 178 subjects based on images of 26 single spaces selected in Hong Kong. All of the four perceptual attributes and five out of six feelings showed significant differences between different spatial enclosures. The results showed that subjects from Hong Kong tended to prefer more open spaces to enclosed ones. Through further interpretations, paths, visual connection with adjacent spaces, and a clear and simple spatial structure of enclosure seemed to influence subjects' feelings and their preferences towards certain spaces. When spatial enclosure is somehow ambiguous, the space could still be preferred as long as the relationship between the single space and its adjacent spaces is clear. Design implications are then discussed for public space in high-rise high-density urban contexts.