100,466 research outputs found
Re-Face: Refurbishment Strategies for the Technical Improvement of Office Façades
No full textTwo thirds of all office real estate in Europe is older than 30 years. While the load bearing structure of a building can last for a century, the interior design is renovated at relatively short intervals. Practice has shown, however, that at the age of twenty to thirty years the facades and climate installations of a building do no longer fulfil today’s demands. They are out-of-date on technical, optical and comfort matters. Particularly these building components hold the potential to improve the energy performance of a building significantly. The façade of a building is also responsible for its exterior appearance and thus the public perception of it owner, as well as for the interior climate and the well-being of the occupant. Consequently, more and more office buildings come into consideration for refurbishment. However, currently the building economy is lacking innovative refurbishment strategies for office facades. On the one hand, most of the current renovation projects tend to substantially refurbish a building, which causes major interference with the building’s interior and the load bearing structure, and consequently a major investment. On the other hand, only little is known about the various façade types, which have been built in different eras. This leads to certain reluctance in initiating a refurbishment project. The market is obviously lacking an overview of practical refurbishment strategies and their applicability to different existing façade typologies. The present thesis intends to fill this gap of knowledge. After an introduction (chapter 1) and overview of the ‘state of the art’ of façade refurbishment (chapter 2), this research project is set up in four steps. In the first place, chapter 3 evaluates the existing stock of office facades in Western Europe. It defines the typical office facades and sorts them into 22 categories, which are characterised by structural features and similar refurbishment challenges. With this typology at hand, the distribution of these office facades is evaluated in different locations in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and in Germany. The local market analysis shows that the three countries, although being in the same climate zone, have developed very different office façades. Thus, an overview is created, which estimates the amount of facades of one typology for certain locations and eras. The common refurbishment tasks become evident. The following step (chapter 4) elaborates the demands and restrictions of façade refurbishment planning. In order to compare different concepts for one given building with each other, this chapter also evaluates existing assessment methods and generates appropriate tools for the special task of refurbishment. These tools compare the quantifiable features energy consumption and life-cycle-cost, as well as quality aspects such as the construction process and the interference with the function of an office, and possible improvement of indoor comfort. For these ‘soft skills’ an evaluation tool is developed, which facilitates the comparative rating and graphical visualisation. Chapter 5 takes in the central part of the research and intensively assessing five case studies that can stand representative for the most common façade types. Among these cases there are office buildings in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as the campus of Bielefeld University. In these studies, the typical problems of each façade typology come to light. For each case, different refurbishment concepts are developed and evaluated in order to define the most promising solution. These concepts look at the building in general and at the façade construction in detail. Furthermore, two product developments are part of this research, which propose solutions for the most common façade types. For the typical post-and-beam façade, an adapter profile has been developed, which permits upgrading existing façades of different manufacturers with new standardised products. It brings the façade to an up-to-date insulation level without alteration of connections to dividing walls and interior finishings. The second product development looks at the typical load bearing facades with window units. The concept proposes to replace the windows and renew the building services within the façade. By combining these features in new façade components it is possible to renew the building envelope and installations entirely from the outside with minimal disturbance of the interior. The system is highly modular, which allows future adaptations. In the fourth step (chapter 6) the results of the case studies and further assessed best-practice examples are combined. This thesis thus gives an overview of the common existing façade types and their typical challenges. The possible refurbishment strategies are evaluated in terms of architecture, function, comfort, investment, material consumption, and energy saving potential. It is possible to choose those refurbishment strategies that are most promising for the various refurbishment tasks. This analysis results in a matrix, which presents the features of each refurbishment concept and relates the concepts to the different existing types of façades. Thus, it will be of use for architects and specialist consultants in the early planning stage to clarify the building task and to identify the first refurbishment concepts. This work is also intended to provide decision makers, such as owners and investors with the necessary background knowledge of the topic. The façade industry can gain insight into the market for office refurbishment and can find inspiration for future product developments. With these goals in mind, this thesis aims to structure the complex task of façade refurbishment and visualise its possibilities. Thus, it wants to motivate real estate stake holders to step into the planning and initiate more buildings to be refurbished. The presented refurbishment strategies permit reducing the energy consumption of an existing building, while the life-cycle costs are reduced. At the same time, they give the chance to improve the comfort of the inhabitants and the quality of the urban environment. In this sense, the refurbishment of office façades takes its share in improving the sustainability of the building stock.Building TechnologyArchitectur
Een gevel voor bestaande appartementengebouwen: Een onderzoek naar de relevantie van een geprefabriceerde gevel voor renovatieprojecten
No full textArchitectur
Letter, [Author unclear] to Paulina T. Merritt
No full textHandwritten letter to Paulina Merritt from an unknown author, October 1, 1876.
Integrated refurbishment planning for sustainable office buildings
No full textEurope's cities are full of office buildings which are technically and visually outdated. Research has demonstrated that more than 60% of German office stock is in acute need for refurbishment. Building planning needs intelligent approaches to façade refurbishment in order to tackle this enormous market. This article presents the head office building of Sparkasse Vorderpfalz in Ludwigshafen, Germany as a typical example of 1970s architecture with corresponding refurbishment tasks. It has been refurbished by following an integral planning approach. Façade technology and building services installations have been treated as co-dependent features looking for the best synergetic effects. The entire refurbishment took place while the building was in use: ‘Please do not stain the carpet!' was the motto stated by the client. With this approach, the Sparkasse Vorderpfalz Building has won the 2010 ‘Re-Skinning Award' in the category ‘large commercial'. The refurbished building has not only proven to be economically feasible, but its ecological and social sustainability has also been evaluated by Delft University of Technology. The experiences have the potential to inspire many more buildings to be refurbished and upvalued.Building TechnologyArchitectur
Handwritten biographical information on Paulina T. McClung Merritt
No full textA handwritten biography of Paulina T. McClung Merritt by an unknown author, 1892.
Heterogeneous and tissue-specific regulation of effector T cell responses by IFN-gamma during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection.
No full textIFN-γ and T cells are both required for the development of experimental cerebral malaria during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection. Surprisingly, however, the role of IFN-γ in shaping the effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell response during this infection has not been examined in detail. To address this, we have compared the effector T cell responses in wild-type and IFN-γ(-/-) mice during P. berghei ANKA infection. The expansion of splenic CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells during P. berghei ANKA infection was unaffected by the absence of IFN-γ, but the contraction phase of the T cell response was significantly attenuated. Splenic T cell activation and effector function were essentially normal in IFN-γ(-/-) mice; however, the migration to, and accumulation of, effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells in the lung, liver, and brain was altered in IFN-γ(-/-) mice. Interestingly, activation and accumulation of T cells in various nonlymphoid organs was differently affected by lack of IFN-γ, suggesting that IFN-γ influences T cell effector function to varying levels in different anatomical locations. Importantly, control of splenic T cell numbers during P. berghei ANKA infection depended on active IFN-γ-dependent environmental signals--leading to T cell apoptosis--rather than upon intrinsic alterations in T cell programming. To our knowledge, this is the first study to fully investigate the role of IFN-γ in modulating T cell function during P. berghei ANKA infection and reveals that IFN-γ is required for efficient contraction of the pool of activated T cells
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Pelevin’s Trinity in the novel “t”: author – protagonist – reader
No full textThe article attempts to interpret Pelevin's artistic strategy in the novel "T" by exploring its subject organization and addressing the key problems of the author, the protagonist, and the reader as they are seen by the researcher. The article analyzes the peculiarities of constructing the narrative reality in the novel "T", and goes on to discuss Pelevin's philosophic models of the development of the humankind, and the emergence of his new anthropology
Measuring industry-science links through inventor-author relations: A profiling method
No full textIn this pilot study we examine the performance of text-based profiling in recovering a set of validated inventor-author links. In a first step we match patents and publications solely based on their similarity in content. Next, we compare inventor and author names on the highest ranked matches for the occurrence of name matches. Finally, we compare these candidate matches with the names listed in a validated set of inventor-author names. Our text-based profile methodology performs significantly better than a random matching of patents and publications, suggesting that text-based profiling is a valuable complementary tool to the name searches used in previous studies.innovation; industry-science links; text-based profiling;
Thermal collector façade
No full textExisting building stock, represented by major share of outdated structures account for a large portion of today’s primary energy consumption for their maintenance and running. These structures failing to comply with today’s norms and standards have to be refurbished to meet modern demand for their better and efficient usage. This research focuses on a specific aspect of facade refurbishment of existing high rise office buildings in United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany, with specific focus on London. Worked in tie up with PERMASTEELISA Group, an architectural component manufacturer, this thesis focuses on the integration of their unitized prefabricated facade solutions with integrated solar thermal collector systems, as successful refurbishment strategy for identified high rise office facades. Derived from two distinct sources; the research work from Re-Face by Dr.-Ing. Thiemo Ebbert and EU backed Cost effective project, this thesis compiles a set of most prevalent office facades, thereby hoping to identify possible architectural freedoms involved in the refurbishment process.Facade mastersBuilding TechnologyArchitectur
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