English

The first part of the paper gives criticisms of convetional practice in landscape architecture in hot humids climates, in terms or efficient utilization of energy. Basic criticisms are: overdependence on imports, oversize of open spaces, oversize of exposed potable water, inappropriate irrigation systems, inappropiate use of plants, and mismanagement of natural resources. The second part of the paper gives recommendations for energy efficient landscape architecture in hot humids regions.

Substantial effort has recently been devoted to passive solar desiccant air dehumidification. This research aims to describe the passive room dehumidifying system with the combination of an existing wooden attic space as a chamber and desiccant; an optimization of ventilation system and solar energy as system operation. The field measurement was carried out in the test house in Japan over hot humid summers in 2003 and 2004. It was found that the dehumidification rate of the wooden attic space was approximately 25 g/h per square meter of floor area of attic space.

The amount of waste produced every year, the exhaustion of resources and the construction solutions currently used in construction may not be sustainable in the future. All these issues lead to the research on new construction techniques, on recycling of waste into useful materials, on re-use of construction materials, etc.

Rawshans has been one of the traditional architectural devices that are still being used in recent buildings as an environmental controlling device. Beside their use as an architectural component, they have been used to control natural ventilation and light. The most critical portion of the Rawshan, as light control concern, is the front screen. A systematic analysis of this portion has not yet been taken care of. However, pervious work of this component was investigated by the author for the effect of direct sunlight transmission.

The window is one of the most important elements in architecture. It has a complex character and fulfills multiple functions but it is a privileged device to connect the interior with the exterior. Architecture is frequently defined as an artificially delimitate space. These limits can be relative or absolute, depending on the environmental conditions. Some of these conditions are vital to human beings and require controlled elements. The window fulfills this role.

The growing demand for better environmental conditions, especially in offices, has increased the need for appropriate standard in order to success the maximum productivity, to minimize the problems of health and the functional cost of air-condition systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the thermal environment in offices of occupants in University of Patras.

Due to the rapid growth of the country, prototype school buildings in Saudi Arabia were designed with little effort made towards the utilization of the natural resources to improve indoor conditions. Most of the existing school buildings in Riyadh, the capital city of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, rely on mechanical equipment to cool interior spaces. As a result, these schools have become one of the major energy consumers during the peak time of the day.

The article shows the results of a case study dealing with indoor daylighting concepts and practice. The analysis evaluates the performances of different window options taking into account quantitative and qualitative aspects such as daylight factor, uniformity ratio of illuminance, and daylighting glare index.

Defrosting in supermarket refrigeration systems is normally controlled by a preset time cycle with most display cabinets timed to defrost every 6 hours. It is widely acknowledged that timed defrost may cause a number of unnecessary defrost cycles and this reduces the energy efficiency of refrigeration systems as well as the accuracy of temperature control of the cases.

It has been shown by previous researchers that Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) not only be used to predict energy more reliably than traditional simulation models and regression techniques but can also from the basis for a predictive controller of thermal systems such as HVAC equipment. This work is directed towards the identification of the important inputs (independent variables) to facilitate on-line prediction and thereby implement refrigeration and HVAC system diagnostics, process control, optimisation and energy management in retail food stores.