Dissertations for Sustainable Design of Built Environment (SDBE)

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Adoption of Greywater Reuse Systems in Hotels in Abu Dhabi
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2021-12) Hammad, Areej
Availability of water resources has become a global issue that is imperative to resolve to achieve sustainable growth for generations to come. Various solutions have been launched to conserve the environment in all its aspects and the availability of clean water is one of the most challenges facing humanity today. The UAE is ranked in the top 10 countries in regards to high baseline of water stress. Innovative approaches need to be taken by authorities, businesses, and people alike to work together to conserve water resources. One such solution is the reuse of treated greywater. Greywater is the effluent from wash basins, showers, laundry, and kitchens. Treating and reusing greywater for purposes of irrigation and toilet flushing could relieve strain on water resources. The study examined the factors that can contribute to greywater adoption in hotels in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is an attractive destination with 168 hotels. A survey was designed and distributed to hotel professionals in Abu Dhabi. The survey was designed around the Theory of Planned Behaviour in order to identify the factors that will impact the behaviour in question in this case, greywater adoption. Greywater adoption in existing and new hotels was examined and results were obtained and analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that management perception, government support and risk associated with greywater impacted decisions to adopt greywater in existing hotels while customer perception and government support were the main factors that impacted adoption of greywater in new hotels according to hotel professionals in Abu Dhabi and the conducted statistical analysis. The study concludes by providing recommendations for future research.
Alternative Facades: Assessment of Building Integrated Photovoltaic and Electrochromic Glazing— Energy Benefits and Future Potentials in Office Building in UAE
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2010-12) Katanbafnasab, Mohammad
With the decline of conventional fossil fuels and the rapid growth of human population, the importance of curbing our energy consumption and reducing our dangerous emissions is now more obvious than ever. Since buildings are one of the top consumers of energy, it is not surprising that many designers, engineers, and architects are starting to address the significance of the building envelope in minimizing energy demands especially in office buildings. While many new alternative façades offer such energy saving benefits, the use of two particular technologies has not been studied enough in the gulf region. Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) and Electrochromic (EC) glazing are perhaps also more important because the potential of both of these technologies is very closely related to the availability of sunshine, which is very abundant in this region. Thus, the aim of this research was to explore the energy benefits and future potential of these two systems within the climatic conditions of the city of Abu Dhabi. A computer energy modeling program was used to assess the energy performance, mainly the reductions in HVAC and lighting, of each system compared to a base case scenario for south, east, west, and north facing facades. Additionally, an economic analysis explored the feasibility of applications of these systems within Abu Dhabi’s construction industry. The result of this research showed that the BIPV is most advantageous on the south façade while the EC glazing performs best on the north facing windows. The BIPV model achieved a maximum energy consumption reduction of about 20.66%, 16.69%, 16.86%, and 1.35% for the south, east, west and north orientation, respectively against the base case model. On the other hand, the EC glazing model had much less benefit against the base case model with ‐2.86%, 1.35%, 0.89%, and 7.41% energy savings for the same orientations, respectively. The increase in glass shading coefficient increased the energy savings (15%) in the BIPV model against the base case. Similarly, the EC glazing showed significant improvement in energy savings (11.17%) over the base case which used higher shading coefficient. Moreover, the change in sensor location from 2m to 4m increased the energy savings for both cases, although the change was very marginal compared to the change of the glass properties. The results of the economic analysis showed that due to high capital cost and low cost of electricity, neither system is currently feasible for investment. However, with future advances in each system and more efficient designs, the pay back periods would become tangible and therefore yield better performances. In conclusion, using an automated light control system with dimming for both models, compared against the standard on‐off lighting mechanism in the base case, the BIPV proves to have a higher energy saving potential than the EC glazing. If these two technologies were to be combined, the best configuration would be to install BIPV on the East, South, and West façade, while the EC glazing is used on the North façade.
Assessing Energy Saving Potential in Existing Buildings in Abu Dhabi through Passive Retrofitting Strategies: Case Study –Office Buildings
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2013-12) Manneh, Abeer
The UAE as a leading country in the region has set goals to reduce CO2 emissions by 2020 in line with Copenhagen Accord. However, the challenge is considered great since the UAE has been identified as one of the highest ecological footprint in the World in 2007. The future plans in the country invest heavily on sustainability frameworks and future plans such as Abu Dhabi Plan 2030. While the sustainability codes and regulatory frameworks have been recently developed in the country, the regulations are only applicable to minor percentage of the overall building stock. In general the new buildings represent only 0.5% to 2% of the total building stock. Therefore, sustainability guidelines for existing building refurbishment are considered to be critical to reduce the energy consumption in the built environment and associated CO2 emissions. This research has studied the existing urban development in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and identified the commercial buildings as a major contributor to the energy consumption in the capital, with almost one third of the total energy consumption being accounted for commercial uses. An additional 25% for governmental usage has common elements with commercial buildings, yet needs to be further detailed for their sub-categories. The paper has identified two building prototypes as representation of the existing commercial building stock for the periods from 1980-1989 and 1990-1999 and prior to the implementation of the Estidama pearl building rating system for new construction. Computer modelling was used to assess the savings in electricity consumption, associated cooling loads, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions for the selected 1980s prototype, with an indication of the annual electricity savings for a typical floor layout for a 1990s prototype. The 1980s case study of 17 stories building was modeled in three simulation models; typical floor, roof floor, and ground and mezzanine floors. Building simulations for each of the models were conducted to assess savings due to individual elemental refurbishment and combined scenarios considering upgrades to 1 and 2pearl rating thermal properties. The potential reduction in cooling loads for the overall building varies dramatically depending on the refurbishment application. For the upgrades to 1 pearl rating standard, the savings ranged from 0.21% in the case of roof, to 5.13% and 11.90% in the case of the wall and fenestration upgrades respectively. However, for the upgrades to 2-5 pearls rating requirements, the savings were estimated at 0.22% for the roof upgrades, 5.61% and 14.67 for the wall and fenestration upgrades respectively. The study indicated that the savings achieved through refurbishment of the roof is negligible compared to that for the replacement of glazing due to the roof area being 6.4% of the building’s external envelope while the glazing forms 25.2% of the same. In this context, the glazing upgrades are considered the most efficient II | P a g e solution. The study also concluded that individual elements of the building, and individual floors could be looked at for prioritized refurbishment strategy depending on the individual savings that could be achieved, easement of implementation, and economic feasibility. Moreover, the study highlights that combined solutions achieve greater savings than when individual refurbishment applications are considered. The savings for the overall building are considered significant estimated at 18.90% and 22.12% for the 1 pearl and 2 pearls upgrades respectively. Solar gain and external conduction gain analysis indicated that the elements behavior and specifically the external conduction gain profile varies for the various applications. As an example, the 2 pearl combined scenario has 0.0727 MWh less annual conduction gain than the sum of the individual scenarios. The economic feasibility study indicated that the most feasible refurbishment solution for the building prototype of 1980s is for 2 pearls glazing upgrade, where 9 years payback period could achieve savings of 164.2157 MWhe of annual electricity consumption. However, it was noted that the highest savings for the combined solution in the case of 2 pearls upgrades would return its capital cost in around 16 years. The simple payback period calculations excludes the savings in government electricity cost subsidies, evaluation of building envelop performance upgrades such as humidity resistance, air tightness, aesthetical appearance, as well as future increases in the cost of electricity. It is expected that once all the benefits are quantified, the Simple Payback Period (SPP) analysis will result in reasonable timeframe for the owners to recoup their initial investment cost. Finally, the research is concluded by extrapolating the annual reduction in electricity consumption to represent the savings across Abu Dhabi. For the 1980s, the implementation of a combined retrofitting scenario to 2 pearls rating requirements; is estimated to achieve annual reduction in electricity consumption of 18,433 MWeh/yr. Whereas, the refurbishment of the most economically feasible solution to upgrade the building glazing to 2 pearl rating standards, can achieve an overall reduction of 12,214 MWeh/yr. CO2 emissions reduction for the combined solution of 2 pearls rating is estimated at 9,530,968 KgCO2/yr. Moreover, an indication of the typical building prototype upgrade for the period from 1990-1999 has indicated that the overall savings for Abu Dhabi for the 1990s buildings, when the glazing elements are upgraded, are 28,599 MWeH/yr and 20,152.MWeh/yr for the 2 pearls and 1 pearl rating respectively.
Assessment of Different Commissioning Service Methods and their Ability to Achieve the Performance KPIs in Educational Buildings in Abu Dhabi-UAE
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2016-10) Kuriakose, Naveen
The vibrant growth of Abu Dhabi’s real estate, tourism and aviation sectors demand sustainable construction in the emirate, to minimise dynamic environmental impacts and to improve comfort levels in the built environment. The construction and operation of buildings contribute greatly towards climate change, global warming, energy crises and water crises, especially in hot-humid climatic zones, such as Abu Dhabi. The pearl rating system of the Abu Dhabi government is a dramatic move towards compulsory sustainable construction, which gives primary importance to water and energy savings. At the same time, building commissioning is a mandatory requirement of the pearl rating system and is the best cost-effective solution for reducing energy and water consumption. Studies show that Abu Dhabi’s building commissioning is still in the infancy stage. Notable researches in this field are yet to be published and this paper is one of the very first researches investigating the analysis of commissioning of educational buildings in Abu Dhabi. Worldwide, the construction industry follows various commissioning service methods, including third party directed commissioning, owner directed commissioning, engineer directed commissioning and designer directed commissioning. However, the selection of the commissioning service method is made typically on an advantage-disadvantage basis. The aim of this research is to go well beyond that, and to find the optimum commissioning service method by performing a thorough analysis of key performance indicators of building construction. Five educational buildings representing different commissioning service methods are selected for this research. Educational buildings have prime importance in the Abu Dhabi government’s sustainability plans. At the same time, the performance of educational buildings will have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of coming generations. Performance analysis of these buildings will reveal the effects of different commissioning service methods on environmental, economic and service level performances of such buildings. This research is classified into five phases. Quantitative analysis of buildings is the first phase, where the performance of four educational buildings are analysed against measurable key performance indicators. In Phase II of the research, qualitative analysis of expert opinions are conducted to analyse the non-measurable key performance indicators of the commissioning process. Phase III is designed to V select the optimum commissioning service method, based on the results obtained in Phase I and Phase II. The research then progresses towards the validation of the Phase III results, through real-life project application and its analysis, this marks Phase IV. The fifth phase of the research is to further fine-tune findings of Phase IV. This research follows literature review, quantitative analysis of building performances and qualitative analysis of expert opinions. The literature review methodology helped to define the key performance indicators. On the other hand, quantitative processing of building trend logs as a preliminary step, supported by field measurements, aided in the analysis of building performances. This analysis revealed considerable differences in the performance of buildings. Buildings commissioned by third party consultants ranked highest in performance, followed by buildings based on owner directed commissioning. Concurrently, qualitative analysis of expert opinions was conducted through a three-stage Delphi study, to analyse those performance indicators that cannot be measured or quantitatively analysed. The results of the Delphi study show that owner directed commissioning is the best in communication and collaboration, while third party directed commissioning is the best in verification and documentation. Designer directed and engineer directed commissioning service methods could not perform well in this analysis, as communication, collaboration and documentation were very poor in these cases, based on the Delphi study results. The results support a third party-owner combined commissioning to share the best practices from each service method. The third party will lead the commissioning service, but the communication and collaboration will be channelled through the owner of the project. The selected commissioning service method is further refined to improve the communication indicator, for advanced optimization. The results of this research can be used to establish key performance indicators for educational buildings in Abu Dhabi. At the same time, this study will help developers to understand various commissioning service methods, to assess their abilities to achieve building key performance indicators (KPIs) and to select the optimum method for constructing educational buildings in Abu Dhabi.
Comparative Study of Building Environmental Assessment Systems: Pearl Rating System, LEED and BREEAM A Case Study Building in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2012-03) Moktar, Ahmed Effat
The continuous growth of cities, the fast developing lifestyles, the negative impacts on the natural environment and wellbeing of communities ,the increasing signs of climate changing and running out of natural resources. All that gave vital necessity for developing environmental assessment schemes that aims to mitigate the negative impacts of our built environment on the natural environment without compromising the quality of the lifestyles of the communities. Environmental Assessment Schemes are considered to be one of the main catalysts for the generation and development of the industry green buildings. Varies Schemes had appeared in the last two decades, part of them considered to be international such as LEED or BREEAM and some local such Esitdama Pearl Rating systems (PRS) of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, all had shown an important role in guiding the construction industry. Although almost all of the assessment methods share goals that can lead to; green building design and construction or improving the performance of existing conventional buildings, still every method has its own structure, certification process and weighting criteria. These differences led to the generation of multiple questions such as which assessment schemes succeeded more in the anticipated image of a green building. The scope of this study is to compare two of the most representative international schemes which are LEED and BREEAM against the PRS. The aim is to benchmark the performance of buildings developed under the PRS against international level schemes. The used methodology for the research is literature review, case study and computer simulation, these methodologies helped the researcher to have a comprehensive look on a selected assessment schemes and allowed to make the required comparisons. In conclusion, it was found that PRS is standalone system that combines most of LEED and BREEAM schemes, and that they have big overall laps in terms of sustainability strategies but from an application and certification levels side, LEED and PRS are more comparable especially in the higher certification levels while BREEAM is less comparable and presents the hardest scheme of the three to score under. It was also found that investment in energy related credits has the mose significant impact in all the three schemes while water credit only impacts PRS. The study of the literature review and the case study had showed that the three environmental assessment schemes even with its differences; all showed in overall a definite positive impact on the building design, performance, a positive impact on the occupants of the rated buildings and positive impact on the environment.
Energy Performance of Earth Sheltered Spaces in Hot-Arid Regions
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2011-12) Al-Neama, Bahaa Hussein Ali
The issue of global warming and climate change has stirred an unprecedented campaign in the building industry to minimize its impact on the environment. Earth sheltered spaces represent the long-gone pattern of living and sheltering against dangerous and harsh environment. Nowadays and despite the stigma of negative thoughts associated with the underground spaces, people in America, Europe, Asia and Australia are still using these spaces. This research is focusing on the underground spaces energy performance in Abu Dhabi/ UAE, and its potentials for reducing the cooling load since the buildings in UAE are cooling dominant. The hypothesis of the research is that underground spaces consume less energy for cooling and heating load in comparison to the above ground conventional spaces. Soil temperatures are calculated using simplified heat equation developed by LABS, IES-VE software used for simulating a model of underground space configurations and compared to the same model base case of above ground space to assess the cooling and heating saving potentials. Additional measures are introduced to increase the percentage of energy saving and enhance performance through the incorporation of thermal insulation and introducing of day lighting. Simulation result shows high saving potentials of underground spaces when compared to the above ground in some configurations; furthermore, different saving percentages achieved for each configuration with regards to depth. Additional savings attained from thermal insulation and day lighting. The research shows that the calculation of soil temperature is essential in predicting the cooling/heating load of the underground spaces. The research concluded that underground spaces represent a practical solution to reduce the sum of cooling load consumed in conventional above ground buildings in areas with harsh climate as the case of Abu Dhabi/ UAE.
ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIORS OF CURRENT MODULAR NEIGHBORHOODS THROUGH CURRENT REGULATIONS “ESTIDAMA”, UAE
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2015-04) Al Abbadi, Oraib Khalaf Al Me’adat
The efficiency of the environmental status management is of a crucial importance in big emerging cities, as these cities are not strangers to environmental setbacks despite their industrial rapid developments and advancements. Therefore, an adequate framework that sets basic implementation strategies of environmental methods and relevant legislations is essential for developing the sustainably environmental coefficient of cities and current industries. According to Abu Dhabi 2030 vision statement established by Abu Dhabi's urban planning council, the urban context of a typical community in Abu Dhabi consists mainly of a neighborhood that is repetitive in its main functional components rather than its physical or structural perception known as "Al Fareej". This paper, draws an attempt at capturing the importance essence of adopting environmental strategies within the development of current modular neighborhoods to produce “sustainably environmental communities”, through The Estidama community pearl rating system as the main sustainability guideline that is followed by Abu Dhabi, established to set and evaluate the mutual coexistence of communities with the environment from a sustainable point of view. As Estidama is a new program established in 2010, it targets all relevantly new projects that are to be constructed or designed. The question of applicability remains unanswered to current neighborhoods as they are not addressed within the Estidama vision. This study’s importance lays in capturing the extent of influence that is to be anticipated when applying environmental green methods to existing neighborhoods, as these operating current neighborhoods are important elements to the city of Abu Dhabi and considered vital in defining the city's environmental status. Through City Cad, and via Estidama credits, a direct reading of the environmental behavior change result in this study as direct numerical values to set a tangible results defined by scientific values. The environmental setting in hand will be defined by Estidama after specifying the parameters that this program addresses. As a result it is found that Estidama and current neighborhoods environmentally meet mainly in 4 environmental pillars tackling the CO2 and gas emissions, the water usage, waste generation and energy consumption. After running simulation on these parameters, it is noted that the neighborhood's post environmental behavior falls within the expected behavior of planned neighborhoods that are primarily targeted by Estidama, but do not hit the highest levels that are set by Estidama. Indeed there is a link between the local rating program and current fully operating neighborhoods, and of course there is a noticeable influence on the environmental behavior by integrating Estidama environmental strategies, but it is not foreseen as an optimal setting as all iv intervention methods are of an active nature rather than a passive one. Estidama within Abu Dhabi need to address the issue of current neighborhoods and work on including them within the sustainability movement of the capital due to their essential role in such initiative. This study has come to a result of ultimately highlighting the ability of current operating neighborhoods to adapt to newly implemented concepts of sustainability, and highlight the ability of the implemented program of Estidama to adapt to the current setting of neighborhoods not only new ones. This also raises the awareness of the essentiality of sustainable communities and highlighting their role in achieving the balanced status between the environmental, economic and social developing aspects on both the local and national grounds.
An Evaluation Study of Dynamic External Louvers in Office Building in Abu Dhabi
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2010-02) Hammad, Fawwaz T.
In the past years, there has been a growing interest among building designers and owners to include intelligence and dynamic systems, as a way for achieving energy-efficient buildings that comply with stringent energy codes and national goals of reducing dangerous emissions, together with improving corporate image. Dynamic façade features have not been sufficiently studied in the Arab Gulf Region. Therefore, this research aimed at exploring the influence of incorporating external dynamic louvers in office buildings under climatic conditions of Abu Dhabi city, through the perspective of energy consumption. By means of computer energy modeling, a proposed office module was used to evaluate overall energy performance of external dynamic louvers for the south, east and west oriented façade. An economic analysis was carried out also to explore the viability of adapting such dynamic systems in the local market of Abu Dhabi. The results of this research showed that the installation of dimming methodology for lighting was always advantageous. It was found that the potential energy saving for south, east and west oriented façade was 24.4%, 24.45% and 25.19%, respectively. The proposed dynamic fenestration system with dimming light achieved maximum energy reductions among other scenarios, although by small margin in many cases. The dynamic system achieved a reduction of energy consumption of approximately 34.02%, 28.57% and 30.31% for south, east and west orientations, respectively. The optimal angle fell between -20° and 0° for the south oriented façade and between 0° and 20° for east and west oriented façade. The results of the economic analysis showed that high construction costs and low prices of electricity in Abu Dhabi were direct reasons for the unfeasible investment of the proposed static or dynamic fenestration systems. In conclusion, the dynamic ability of external louvers can improve the energy performance of fixed louvers especially when lighting control methodology is applied. However, a careful integration of any proposed dynamic system and glass properties is highly recommended to help acting as a true energy saver as well as environmental controller.
The Impact of Different Urban Configurations on Outdoor Thermal Comfort: A Case Study of the Military Camps in Abu Dhabi, UAE
(The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2016-09) Ahmed, Amal Mohamed
One of the major challenges facing the urban planning sector is the rapid pace of growth of the world‘s urban populations. In particular, the urban, economic and institutional conditions of Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are unique. However, Abu Dhabi is a significant case study of conflict between political, economic, and urban design in terms of large- scale project planning that makes this city suffer from the negative impact of urbanism. This is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) of urban settings. Military camps are different from other standard urban settings: the urban design of camps aims to provide an integrated approach to security, transformation and environmental challenges. The balance between security and prosperity through sustainability will be addressed in this research. This research aims to study the impact of different urban configurations of forms, courtyard proportion, height and orientation on outdoor thermal comfort, particularly, the reduction of air temperature and influence of wind conditions. Computer simulation was preferred as the main methodology in this research and ENVI-met 4.0 software was used as the main simulation tool. The investigations in this research were performed in three Phases. Phase One focused on identifying the most favourable urban configuration in terms of thermal behaviour out of six different proposals: existing linear blocks with a rectangular courtyard; proposed fortress blocks with a square courtyard; proposed fortress blocks with a rectangular courtyard; proposed U-shape blocks with a square courtyard; proposed L-shape blocks with a square courtyard; and proposed developed linear blocks with a rectangular courtyard. In Phase Two, three different heights were applied iii on the most favourable and existing urban configurations. Phase Three investigated the impact of orientation in identifying the optimal urban configuration for military camps. Simulation outcomes confirmed that developed linear F with three storeys and a courtyard proportion of 12:12 (length:height) has the best thermal behaviour and is considered as the most favourable urban configuration. The results show that north west–south east orientation provides the most comfortable outdoor environment. The findings from the three phases of the research showed that selecting the optimal urban configuration decreases air temperature by 2 °C from 33.6 to 31.54 for the base case and the most favourable developed linear from F respectively. Also, it was concluded that both height and orientation had negligible effects in comparison to urban form and courtyard proportion on reducing air temperatures in this particular study. One main conclusion is that bioclimatic urban design can be used to achieve a significant improvement of outdoor thermal comfort. For instance, three storey buildings, orientation of north west–south east, and developed linear building form can be considered as the most favourable building prototype in military camps in Abu Dhabi. However, the behaviour of the outdoor parameters remains quite multifaceted and unpredictable and requires further research.

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