For mid-latitude cities, higher summer temperatures due to climate change are a cause for concern because they aggravate the urban heat island phenomenon and reduce thermal comfort inside buildings. By acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills, architects and urban designers can become key actors in adaptation to climate change. Two workshops bringing together architects and urban designers provided evidence of deficiencies in this area. We hypothesize that a design support tool (DST) focused on the issue of adaptation of mid-latitude cities to rising summer temperatures could help improve knowledge and skills of professionals in the field. The first section presents the results taken from a review and classification of DSTs, which highlight the tools' features that are likely to reach this goal. Tools of the “hybrid” category seem most appropriate. To verify this, seven DSTs were selected and tested by fourteen students enrolled in a graduate-level architecture design studio. The second section presents the results from this test, including an analysis of the final projects, a web-based questionnaire and two focus groups. The relevance of hybrid approaches is established, but the results bring into question the capacity of a single DST to meet the individual and multiple needs of professionals.

Traditional Islamic teachings and traditions involve guidelines that have direct applications in the domestic sphere. The principles of privacy, modesty, and hospitality are central to these guidelines; each principle has a significant effect on the design of Muslim homes, as well as on the organization of space and domestic behaviors within each home. This paper reviews literature on the privacy, modesty, and hospitality within Muslim homes. Nineteen publications from 1986 to 2013 were selected and analyzed for content related to the meaning of privacy, modesty, and hospitality in Islam and the design of Muslim homes. Despite the commonly shared guidelines for observing privacy, modesty, and hospitality within each home, Muslims living in different countries are influenced by cultural factors that operate within their country of residence. These factors help to shape the architectural styles and use of space within Muslim homes in different ways. Awareness of the multifactorial nature of the influences on the Muslim perception of home and the use of space is necessary for architects, building designers, engineers, and builders to be properly equipped to meet the needs of clients.

The ubiquitous sameness of urban greenways prompts questions on generative design grammar and syntax, whether creative, critical rethinking at that level might be lacking. However the design syntax of urban greenways is not explicitly discussed thus leaving a critical gap in knowledge. This paper begins tackling the larger question by acting on the fundamental subset of it, by operationalizing the design syntax of urban greenways. This is done through mathematics-based graph studies to analyze patterns and shapes, photography based thermal, material and morphology studies, and section analyses to make imagery-derived deductions on the design syntax. Recommendation on approaches to diversify and enrich the design syntax includes a more direct reference from ecosystem science theories such for siting and planning the urban greenways at macro- to meso-scale, a mixed-method approach, combining mathematics, photography and drawings based frames for analyses at meso-, to micro-scale, and a turtle view scale for designing at meso- to micro-scale, with an emphasis on latter.

Trees are a major factor in defining the spatial qualities of outdoor spaces. This study investigates the influence of spatial configuration produced by the proposed tree planting design on the visual fields of an urban park using space syntax theory. Space syntax theory assumes that an urban area can be represented as a matrix of connected spaces. The quantitative properties of this matrix in the form of syntactic measures can be measured using computer simulations. This research investigates how space syntax techniques can help assess the effect of tree configurations on the social structure of a small-scale garden in an urban park. Such techniques are assumed useful in predicting the social structure of the proposed space and in assessing design alternatives. An experimental study using three different planting design proposals for an urban park is conducted. Data are analyzed using space syntax techniques. Results reveal a significant effect of planting configurations on syntactic measures across the three proposals. This study suggests that space syntax techniques may have a significant value in the assessment of schematic planting design, especially at the pedestrian movement level.

Vernacular buildings across the globe provide instructive examples of sustainable solutions to building problems. Yet, these solutions are assumed to be inapplicable to modern buildings. Despite some views to the contrary, there continues to be a tendency to consider innovative building technology as the hallmark of modern architecture because tradition is commonly viewed as the antonym of modernity. The problem is addressed by practical exercises and fieldwork studies in the application of vernacular traditions to current problems. This study investigates some aspects of mainstream modernist design solutions and concepts inherent in the vernacular of Asia, particularly that of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). This work hinges on such ideas and practices as ecological design, modular and incremental design, standardization, and flexible and temporal concepts in the design of spaces. The blurred edges between the traditional and modern technical aspects of building design, as addressed by both vernacular builders and modern architects, are explored.

The parametric study of the indoor environment of green buildings focuses on the quantitative and qualitative improvement of residential building construction in China and the achievement of indoor thermal comfort at a low level of energy use. This study examines the effect of the adaptive thermal comfort of indoor environment control in hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zones. This work is based on a field study of the regional thermal assessment of two typical cases, the results of which are compared with simulated results of various scenarios of “energy efficiency” strategy and “healthy housing” environmental control. First, the simulated results show that the adaptive thermal comfort of indoor environment control is actually balanced in terms of occupancy, comfort, and energy efficiency. Second, adaptive thermal comfort control can save more energy for heating or cooling than other current healthy housing environmental controls in China's HSCW zone. Moreover, a large proportion of energy use is based on the subjective thermal comfort demand of occupants in any building type. Third, the building shape coefficient cannot dominate energy savings. The ratio of the superficial area of a building to the actual indoor floor area has a significant positive correlation with and affects the efficiency of building thermal performance.

This article presents an innovative fa?ade system designed to increase the thermal comfort inside an office room and to enhance the cooling capacity of the suspended cooling ceiling. A series of measurements is conducted in an existing office building with different fa?ade systems (i.e., a combination of glazing and shading). An innovative fa?ade system is developed based on this intensive set of measurements. The new system enhances the thermal comfort and cooling capacity of the suspended cooling ceiling. The main usage of the new system is the refurbishment and improvement of existing fa?ade systems.