Our planet is currently facing significant challenges such as overpopulation, climate change, and resource depletion, leading to severe environmental degradation. The construction industry, in particular, has played a major role in aggravating these issues. The increase in carbon emissions has contributed to rising global temperatures, necessitating higher energy consumption in buildings to maintain thermal comfort during extreme heat conditions, which in turn further contributes to climate change. To break this cycle, designers and researchers have developed various passive strategies for buildings to reduce energy consumption. However, improper design and implementation of these strategies often compromise indoor comfort.

The building envelope, as the protective layer of a building, plays a critical role in maintaining indoor comfort. Therefore, it is essential to focus on facade strategies that not only reduce energy usage but also ensure user comfort. This thesis explores the development of passive facade strategies aimed at reducing energy consumption and maintaining thermal comfort during the cooling season. Through a systematic literature review, existing passive facade strategies employed to reduce cooling loads were examined, revealing a gap in considering occupant interaction.

The thesis investigates the potential of occupant-facade interaction as a passive strategy to reduce energy usage and maintain thermal comfort. Occupant behaviour models are identified and implemented to assess their impact on indoor comfort and air quality. The research seeks to provide insights into the benefits of occupant involvement and how it influences thermal comfort during the cooling season. The objective is to determine whether occupant behaviour alone can effectively maintain comfort and indoor air quality without relying on external mechanical systems.

By studying the relationship between occupant behaviour and the facade, this research aims to contribute valuable information on the role of occupants in reducing energy consumption and ensuring thermal comfort. The findings will shed light on the potential of occupant-facade interaction as an effective passive strategy in building design, with the ultimate goal of designing energy-efficient buildings that prioritize occupant comfort and well-being during the cooling season. Additionally, the findings of this research can serve as a foundation for the development of strategies that promote occupant interaction with the facade, leading to further reductions in energy consumption. By understanding the impact of occupant behaviour on thermal comfort and air quality, designers and building professionals can devise innovative approaches to optimize occupant-facade interaction, thereby minimizing the reliance on energy-intensive mechanical systems.

The aim of the current graduation project is the investigation of the potential of using hempcrete for the construction of residences in the Netherlands. The research focuses on the prefabricated block form of the material and investigates different aspects that can play a major role and eventually affect the choice for the selection of the material in building applications. Such aspects are: the regulation and performance proofing requirements which are associated with the application of an unstandardised material, the application methods, the strengths and limitations related to the nature of material, the current industry barriers, its hygrothermal, energy and environmental performances according to the Dutch building regulation in comparison to popular industrialised materials in the Netherlands and the related costs. The compared industrilised options were two: the Aerated Autoclaved Blocks, which account for an industrialised option with equivalent properties as these of the hempcrete blocks, and the option of Sand-lime bricks in combination with Fiberglass insulation, which is currently a widely used construction option in the Netherlands. Dynamic hygrothermal simulations were performed in WUFI software, whereas available EPDs were used for the investigation of the environmental impacts of the materials under scrutiny in a life cycle analysis. Available literature, interviews with parties characterised by different roles and high experience regarding the use of biobased materials in the building industry were also used as a means for the completion of the current graduation project.
Apart from the available literature, the research methods followed in the current graduation project were influenced by the results of the performed interviews, which indicated aspects that could be further explored. The results of the research show that in terms of performances, the material is able to satisfy the requirements of the modern Dutch building regulation and therefore the later does not account for the reason behind the limited propagation of the material in the Dutch building industry. Nevertheless, the current Dutch regulation is currently a barrier that discourages the international material supply and disregards important properties of hempcrete as its moisture buffering capacity and specific heat capacity which can play an important role. The Sand lime brick option has been proved more competitive in comparison to the Autoclaved Aerated option, as hempcrete outperformed its industrialised version AAC in the vast majority of the analyses performed in the current study. Hempcrete shows a better moisture buffering capacity and environmental footprint. The hygrothermal performances of hempcrete blocks were also proved beneficial in the condensation analyses, where even hempcrete walls with lower thermal resistance still reached the same performances as the better thermally designed SL walls. Hempcrete design of the residence exhibited slightly lower energy performances, which can be attributed to the lower volumetric heat capacity of the material.

The countryside is standing at the cross of its destiny due to rapid urbanization. Influenced by the historical dual urban-rural relationship, the countryside in China was regarded as the sacrifice of regional modernization. Since the reform and opening up, a miraculous expansion of cities could be seen within the Great Bay Area (GBA). However, the price of this great leap is the broken countryside losing independence: City-oriented planning has led to increasing urban-rural disparities, which is replacing the agriculture landscape with monofunctional land use and transforming rural area into satellite areas within the poly-centric regional structure. Therefore, how to redefine the countryside and propose development patterns jumping out of the urbanization path has become an urgent problem, yet effective spatial strategies and theory-based practices are currently limited (Magel, 2019). The thesis aims to explore the potential of the modern countryside as a sustainable settlement in the GBA. Through comprehensive methodology taking the layers approach as a critical method, the project retrospects the transition from perspectives of form, function and governance in the countryside, and critiques the functional zoning planning approach which reinforces the unbalanced local development. It proposes a vision of the hybrid and productive rural system based on agricultural innovation, a flexible spatial framework that considers production, environment and livability comprehensively, and a series of possible strategies related to existing patterns. In the future, the countryside could become a development option complementary to cities and contribute to the formation of a diverse and urban-rural integrated network of this international mega-metropolitan region.

Young graduates are facing housing difficulties in the Chinese metropolis. The Chinese government published new policies to encourage regeneration of the land stock resources as affordable rental housing targeting young people. This study aims to explore how urban regeneration can benefit young graduates’ livability. Specifically, it investigates the possibility to regenerate urban villages as affordable rental housing provisions. In this context, affordable rental housing tackles spatial inequities and should be located in opportunity-rich areas.
To test the assumption that urban villages can be regenerated as affordable rental housing, spatial analysis on multiple scales was conducted and four well-located urban villages were chosen as cases to study. The villages were evaluated based on the indicators from young graduates’ demand analysis, and different governance models were analyzed to explore the possibilities for regeneration. The results shows that the conflict between the private interest in densification and public interest in open space is the main challenge for regeneration, and not only the spatial intervention but also the operation mechanism need to be proposed.
These results suggest that encouraging spontaneous regeneration by combining top-down and bottom-up strategies may be an approach for future regeneration as well as a chance to legalize the informal village settlement. This requires not only the efforts of the village collective but also the support and active participation of the public sector. By improving the public space network and doing some experiments on strategic projects, the regeneration strategy can be tested and applied to other well-located urban villages in Shenzhen, providing more affordable housing options for young graduates.

The wide application of glass in buildings is due to its innate transparency and durability. This quality has led to the development of hollow glass blocks during the industrial revolution. These blocks are durable, fire-resistant, exhibit heat resistance, and sound deadening properties. In recent years, new explorations have begun to uncover the structural potential of glass. It is no longer just a cladding material but is also being used for load-bearing applications due to its high compressive strength. One of the most significant drawbacks of cast glass bricks’ current systems is the unsatisfactory thermal performance due to the absence of a cavity and the thick cross-section, which acts as one thick single glazed unit. On the other hand, hollow glass blocks are non-load-bearing due to their thin cross-section of the inner wall which results in buckling under a load and thus, the system is susceptible to failure. A promising solution to these problems is to develop a block that can exhibit structural strength and thermal insulating properties. To do this, design guidelines were developed by carefully studying both the systems followed by different design options which were analysed for their thermal performance. It was observed that the incorporation of cavity, inert gas and coatings greatly influences the thermal property. Also, the presence of continuous glass cross-section is important for structural integrity which generates thermal bridges that negatively impacts the thermal performance of the system. This analysis resulted in two different design options; the fusion block and the lattice block. To fabricate these blocks, careful consideration was taken in the design of the moulds and the chosen glass type. For the two designs, two separate connection systems are employed; one an embedded connection and the other an interlocking pattern. Both connections generate a dry assembly system which is reversible, easy to assemble and easy to maintain. To understand the feasibility of the proposed design solutions, a case study of Ports 1961 store in Shanghai was considered. The blocks were applied on the façade of the building and this was then analysed based on the developed design criterions. The proposed blocks have better thermal performance values, optical and aesthetical qualities. The installation process is much simpler and reversible. The fabrication process is however complex but that is due to the absence of standardized manufacturing system for cast glass bricks. The present research does not conclude in a single suitable design option but rather two concepts. The exploration of different concepts for thermal performance, it’s fabrication and installation results in a general understanding of the parameters that affect the development of this technology. To realize the proposed system, structural verification, fire safety and acoustics still need to be carefully considered and additionally this need to be validated experimentally to derive statistical data for its safe application. Nonetheless the performance values indicate a great potential in the technology.

In the current built environment, the three main glass elements are glass window blocks, (structural) float glass and (structural) glass bricks. Float glass is the most used type of glass element and it is evolving from a skin material to a structural material. Glass hollow blocks became popular in the 1930s, but have lost their appeal due to little structural capacity and outdated aesthetics. A new and upcoming technique is the usage of cast glass bricks, which provides high structural performance without the use of substructures. The 21st century is unmistakably characterized by climate change and the effort being put into the battle against it. It is the duty of engineers to design in a sustainable way. ‘Sustainable’ can be interpreted in many ways; the focus within this paper lies on the usage of recycled materials, the recyclability of the final product and the energy usage during the lifespan of the façade (linked to thermal performance). When looking at the material itself, glass is a very recyclable material. This is widely done for glass bottles. However, the recyclability of float glass is very limited. Windowpanes and structural glass panes both consists of several layers of glass, combined with a PVB interlayer. Mostly, these combined panes are themselves processed further into insulated glass units, or IGUs. This end product consists of many different materials, that are hard to separate and for this reason, IGUs are seldom recycled at this moment. Additionally, not only the end product is rarely recycled, little recycled material is used for the production of float glass. The tolerances for using waste cullet in the production of float glass is very limited. Since the lifecycle cannot easily be changed for float glass, it is interesting to look into cast glass. The production technique is different from the production of float glass. Glass is melted into a mould, rather than spread along a bath of tin. The latest research shows the possibilities of using glass cullet and thus casting waste glass. One opportunity that arises from this, is the development of waste glass bricks. One main problem of cast glass bricks is its thermal performance. Due to the lack of cavities, as present in IGUs or hollow glass bricks the thermal performance is not optimal, especially with the increasing need for high-performing facades to meet sustainability demands. There are several strategies to improve the thermal performance of glass structures. The most simple solution for reducing the thermal transmittance is the introduction of air pockets or cavities. Air is a relatively good insulator, especially in small confined geometries. Convection reduces the thermal resistance of air and the bigger the air pocket, the more convection can occur. Not only air can provide insulation, this can also be done with other materials. Inert gasses, like argon and krypton, have a lower thermal conductivity than glass, but are more costly and would require a more complex production process to fill the cavity and to ensure complete sealing. Translucent solutions can be achieved with materials like aerogel and glass fibres. Light transmittance is still present, but the result is not transparent. If transparency or translucency is completely ignored, traditional insulation materials, like rock wool and polystyrene, could increase the thermal resistance too. Improvements can also be made with either reducing the amount of as long-wave, infrared energy going through the glass utilizing coatings or by reducing the conductivity of the glass itself by changing the molecular build-up. The glass recipe influences the thermal conductivity. This thesis focuses on the thermal performance of cast glass bricks and in specifically the investigation of the impact of cavities on the thermal performance and the development of a relevant production method for cavity cast glass bricks. Air cavities can be added on either system-level or element-level. On a system-level, the design of a singular brick does not change, but the typology in which it is used does. Cavity walls with either a double brick wall or with an additional float glass wall will improve the thermal performance but will utilize a lot more material. When changing the geometry of the brick itself, one or more cavities can be introduced to improve the performance. Since smaller cavities have a relatively better performance, multiple small cavities will automatically perform better than a singular larger cavity. Several designs are drawn, varying from a single or double cavity to an arrangement of glass shards, providing lots of encapsulated air pockets. Thermal bridges within a design influence the overall thermal performance. The heat will choose the path with the least resistance, which is via the glass. It is possible to lengthen the path that the heat must undertake, by introducing multiple air chambers and increasing the overall thickness of the brick. This increased thickness will also aid the structural performance. Creating multiple air pockets is directly linked to many glass-air transitions and thus a more complex geometry and production process. Producing such a brick with current standard manufacturing techniques would require glue. Glueing is not very environmentally friendly. The glue is not easily (if not impossible) to remove and therefore the final product is not recyclable. With experimental research, the potential of tack fusing glass is highlighted. This ‘tack fusing’ is done at a temperature below the actual fusing temperature, where the glass still creates a permanent bond, without relaxation and shape loss. This temperature lies around the dilatometric softening point of the specific glass type. The potential of the tack fusing method is explored employing shear tests of fused specimens. Three types of specimens are tested: two different series of tack fused specimens at 650˚C (1hr, 3hr dwell at top temperature) and one series of glued samples (DELO 4468) to be used as a reference. DELO4468 is a high-performance glue, which is mostly used for its high strength. Nine design concepts are drawn, based on a solid brick of 200x200x100 mm. Seven element-based designs are limited within these boundaries since increased thickness (even with only glass) would lead to higher thermal performance. Two system-level alternatives are not in-depth researched but are still examined as reference. These two alternatives cannot be kept within these boundaries and are thus at increased depth of the finished wall. All nine designs are scored in a multi-criteria analysis. The main focus is the thermal performance and therefore the thermal transmittance of each design needs to be analysed. This is for eight out of nine designs done with TRISCO, a steady-state 3D thermal analysis software. The last design, a fused shard brick, consisting of a random arrangement of random-shaped shards and is not easily modelled in 3D software. For this reason, it is not analysed in TRISCO but analysed through an experimental analysis. This experiment replicates a situation in which one side of the brick is warmer than the other while measuring the temperatures and heat fluxes. With these measurements, the thermal transmittance can be estimated. The last part of this thesis is the multi-criteria analysis, or MCA, in which all alternatives are scored against several criteria. One of these criteria is the thermal performance, others are sustainability, producibility, aesthetical potential and transparency. The sustainability is scored against several checks, related to the recyclability and the required temperature for production. The producibility and the aesthetical potential is scored utilizing a small expert survey. Both criteria are subjective of nature, but by including the opinion of several experts, the outcome is inter-subjective. The transparency is scored regarding the number of refractive surfaces (because with each air-glass transition visibility is lost due to reflections) and the percentage of non-transparent materials in the cross-section. The result of this thesis is not a single design, but insights in the potential of each concept. All designs are not ready for direct application but would require further structural verification and thermal optimisation, depending on the governing thermal requirements. There is not one perfect solution since each façade has different performance requirements, but the results do provide insights for an improvement from the current technologies.