Low Carbon Architecture: New Approach Toward Sustainability in Relation to Existing Buildings
| dc.contributor.author | Hedayati, Mahsa | en |
| dc.contributor.committeechair | Emmons, Paul F. | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Sattler, Meredith Jaye | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C. | en |
| dc.contributor.department | Architecture | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-09-16T08:01:30Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2020-09-16T08:01:30Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-09-15 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | The built environment puts the greatest pressure on the natural environment out of all human activities, so it has a fundamental obligation to be environmentally sustainable. Carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon emissions is a significant greenhouse gas that is inevitably associated with energy use when energy is produced via the combustion of fuels. Total life cycle energy, embodied and operational energy over a building's lifetime, creates significant environmental impacts through the production of CO2. By keeping and reusing existing and historic buildings rather than discarding them and building new, the embodied energy, or the energy that is locked up, can help to mitigate future damage. These buildings already exist, which indicates that the energy consumed to build them has been applied and the carbon associated with their construction has been released. The greenest buildings are ones that are already built. They are inherently more sustainable than any new buildings even with green and zero net energy systems and can be retrofitted to become more energy efficient. To demonstrate this thesis specifically, a design project engages with an abandoned late nineteenth-century bank building in Philadelphia and transforms it into a high-performance building that is prepared for long-term use. For the immediate next use, the project creates a work environment and a new vertical expansion of residential units. The preservation field always confronts the challenge of bridging the gap between embodied energy and operational energy. In the abandoned bank, there are some aspects of this building that are near permanent and define its character, such as brick walls with masonry ornament, two bank vaults, Wissahickon Schist foundation wall, and ceiling trusses. This thesis explores new approaches to leverage the embodied energy of the permanent parts of the abandoned bank and transform it into a high-performance building. A lot of energy of the abandoned bank, the building's material, and thermal mass is still actively performing. The building's envelope, the thick masonry wall, provides a moderately good insulating effect that will temper the indoor air that also preserves its historical character both inside and outside. The embodied energy of the building's envelope is leveraged by pairing it with localized heating and cooling using a radiation and conduction system. Other approaches that increase energy performance in the existing building, include the use of phase-change material for cooling the process water, solar hot water, creating drinking water via a solar still in the skylight, and distilled water from radiant cooling surfaces. In the new construction, a thermal switch facade and double-skin facade for the residential units are proposed, along with providing flexible space with thick mobile interior wall units. | en |
| dc.description.abstractgeneral | Global warming as a problem of the twenty-first-century increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human actions like burning fossil fuels. The built environment puts the greatest pressure on the natural environment of all industrial parts, and it has a fundamental role to manage the environment sustainably. Total life cycle energy, embodied and operational energy over the lifetime of the buildings, creates significant environmental impacts through the production of CO2. Embodied energy is the whole amount of energy applied to extract the raw materials, manufacture, transport, install, and use the product across its life cycle. Assessments of the embodied energy of historic and existing buildings are helping to mitigate future damage to resources. These buildings already exist, which indicates that the energy consumed to build them has been applied and the carbon associated with their construction has been released. The greenest buildings are ones that are already built. They are inherently sustainable and can be retrofitted to become more energy efficient. Specifically, this design engages with an abandoned late nineteenth-century bank building in Philadelphia and transforms it into a high-performance building that is prepared for long-term use. For the immediate next use, the project creates a work environment and in a new vertical expansion, residential units. In the abandoned bank, there are some aspects of this building that are near-permanent and define its characters, such as brick walls with masonry ornament, two bank vaults, Wissahickon Schist wall, and ceiling trusses. This thesis explores the new approaches to leverage the embodied energy of the permanent parts of the abandoned bank and transform it into a high-performance building. This is achieved through various means such as providing localized heating and cooling by using a radiation and conduction system, the use of phase-change material for cooling the process water, solar hot water, creating drinking water via a solar still in the skylight and distilled water from radiant cooling surfaces. In the new construction, a thermal switch facade and double-skin facade for the residential units are proposed, along with providing flexible space with thick mobile interior wall units. | en |
| dc.description.degree | Master of Architecture | en |
| dc.format.medium | ETD | en |
| dc.identifier.other | vt_gsexam:26785 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99968 | en |
| dc.publisher | Virginia Tech | en |
| dc.rights | In Copyright | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | en |
| dc.subject | Energy | en |
| dc.subject | Sustainability | en |
| dc.subject | Embodied Energy | en |
| dc.subject | Operational Energy | en |
| dc.subject | Low Carbon | en |
| dc.subject | Existing Buildings | en |
| dc.title | Low Carbon Architecture: New Approach Toward Sustainability in Relation to Existing Buildings | en |
| dc.type | Thesis | en |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Architecture | en |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | en |
| thesis.degree.level | masters | en |
| thesis.degree.name | Master of Architecture | en |