The energy use of commercial building operations is a significant contributor to the total global energy demand, and lighting is one of the largest end uses of electricity in commercial buildings. Convention Centers as commercial buildings are examples of big energy consumers, and they present a unique opportunity to showcase benefits of green building techniques due to their large size and broad range of visitors; however, the individual nature of convention centers makes it challenging to find design improvements which will be helpful in general for many convention centers. One exception to this rule of individuality is the presence of public assembly rooms, which are ubiquitous in nature and are used heavily. Traditionally, public assembly rooms are fully enclosed to allow for full control of illumination levels with artificial lighting, particularly fluorescent light. This represents a missing opportunity to utilize daylight or energy efficient artificial light to reduce energy use while enhancing human visual comfort. The objective of this research is to analyze the potential impact of the use of daylight in public assembly rooms. We present the results of a set of computer simulations performed using IES VE software. The simulations are performed as an iterative process, using as base case a north-facing public assembly room in the Tucson Convention Center, and progressively updating the lighting scheme using the software to analyze the illuminance levels for each case. The results are used to propose a lighting scheme for the north-facing public assembly room which uses 100% daylight to achieve a uniform level of illumination and meets the compliance of illumination requirements for public assembly rooms.

The continuous turmoil in some regions of the Middle East, including Syria and Iraq, has resulted in the displacement of millions of people, a big portion of those displaced people end up seeking refuge in neighboring countries, where often refugee camps are set up by multiple contributors for humanitarian causes. The infill form of planning that comes with an emergency situation such as war, does not optimize the individual, social and energy efficiency aspects of refugee camps. Looking at the various refugee camps around the world gives an insight on how to/ or not to design in relation to climatic conditions. Lessons learned can also be deducted from looking at established camps and social programs. The goal is to design a grouping of Green shelters that allows for individual wellbeing and social interaction alongside the rest of the basic human needs.

In an individual’s life there are several major decisions they must make, one of the most significant being what kind of home they live in. Oftentimes the home type prospective homebuyers choose is a detached, single-family residence. Of detached-single family residences in the United States production homes account for 73% of detached, single-family homes in residential new construction. Due to this high market share of detached, single-family homes being production homes it is vital to assess the quality of the homes being produced. One important lens to evaluate production homes through is the daylighting conditions of the home. The presence of daylight in architectural applications has been shown to be highly beneficial to occupants in elevating their mood, maintaining their circadian rhythms, increasing productivity and reducing fatigue. This research aims to study the daylight conditions of the base floor plan of Taylor Morrison’s Appaloosa plan in Estates at Eastmark Venture II Collection community in Mesa, Arizona as a case study to define a methodology of orientation-based optimization using a Window to Floor Ratio (WFR) calculation. The analysis of the base case Appaloosa plan showed a consistency of under-illuminated conditions in the living area as referenced against IESNA standards within the home at all orientations during the winter and over-illuminated conditions in the dining room during the summer and winter. Two redesigns were conducted including one redesign incorporating only sidelighting strategies and the other including sidelighting and top lighting daylight strategies. The results of these redesigns concluded in redesign one for the living area having an average of 25.7 F.C. for the North, 26.04 F.C. for the East, 25 F.C. for the South, and 22.85 F.C. for the West Orientation. Due to the inability of the West to reach the minimum amount of F.C. to be considered well-lit a second redesign was done and in this the West Orientation achieved 25.04 F.C. The dining room in comparison was able to achieve compliance with one redesign with results showing an average of 19.27 F.C. for the North, 18.42 F.C. for the East, 17.78 F.C. for the South, and 18.02 F.C. for the West orientation during the summer. The winter dining room in comparison was still in compliance with the range of being well-lit but tended to have results with less F.C. such as the North at 18.23 F.C., the East at 16.44 F.C., the South at 16.12 F.C., and the West orientation at 16.35 F.C.

As the world continues to see an increase in Natural Disasters, there is a need for disaster preparedness now more than ever. Through the retrofitting of existing large-scale buildings with a design approach that considers: location, structure, and program people in need would have a place of refuge prior to the occurrence of a disaster. Utilizing specific large-scale public buildings such as stadiums, or convention centers chosen by the above criterium. Allocating, spaces for various uses and equipping them through the development of a two component methodology created to help local governments investigate means of designing buildings to accommodate victims of all different disaster conditions relevant to the region. The two components which are building identification and building programming, address the designation of buildings and procedure to ensure optimal execution and function in response to the needs of the disaster type. Which addresses areas in the United States prone to floods, and hurricanes. Specifically, in the Gulf and East Coast Regions.

Two key architectural concepts that must be taken into account in every design are sustainability and flexibility. These two ideas are inherently tied to one another. Sustainability refers to ideas and processes that provide solutions meant to better our built environment by using renewable resources, and reducing the amount of energy used in order to ensure our planets well-being for future generations. Flexibility refers to the capability of adaptation in order to accommodate different situations and circumstances. Users will always change through time, while a structure remains the same. The goal of flexibility is to allow a building to evolve as its users do in both long and short term. Rooms can be added or removed, exterior connections can change, and uses of rooms can change throughout the day as spaces are used differently. Flexibility will extend a building's entire life cycle and reducing the need for expensive renovations by making every space multi-use. Each building's entire life cycle should be taken into account during the design phase, and no building should serve as a single use, this idea will also make them more sustainable. These two concepts will also have very important social and economical implications for the users.

Honduras faces the highest levels of economic inequality in Latin America, 66% of the population live in poverty, 8.1% is the unemployment rate and 1.1 million the housing deficit. One million affordable housing units need to be built to cover the shortfall, which is concentrated mainly in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and Choloma. Building at least half a million new homes and improving about 600,000 that do not meet the minimum conditions of habitability is what is needed in Honduras, particularly in the cities of San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa is required. In Honduras, the government has the goal to massify new low-income affordable housing developments around cities, with an estimated 12,000 new households to be constructed across Honduras by the end of 2018. But as in most developing countries, sustainable design is not taken into consideration when it comes to affordable housing developments, yet low income-families are highly affected from increasing energy prices and environmentally related health issues. These large-scale projects could minimize local and global environmental impacts and improve the quality of life of its inhabitants, if sustainable guiding standards are embraced during design, construction, and maintenance. The rising cost of utilities are affecting low-income families in “affordable” housing developments, the energy expenses force them to make hard choices between basic needs or going back to informal settlements. For this reason, reducing operating and maintenance cost should be a priority for low-income housing design Passive design is any technology or strategy that increase energy-efficiency and thermal comfort by taking advantage of the climate, without the need for expensive mechanical systems. The study analyses different passive design strategies that are applicable for affordable housing developments. Such strategies are orientation, shading, natural ventilation, daylight, and open spaces. The aim is to address energy efficiency and thermal comfort by evaluating and suggesting solutions that improve the quality of life of low-income families in affordable housing developments. The application of passive design strategies showed a 44% reduction in electric utilities, a base case and a proposed design was modeled in eQuest, energy modeling software. The results show a significant reduction towards low-income families’ housing expenses.

World energy consumption attends to increase in all sectors, which leads to more CO2 emissions and air pollution. In 2016, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that world energy consumption will increase up to 48% by 2040. The building sector is the largest consumer of the energy. Consequently, the global needs a universal proposal to mitigate and reduce the impacts on the environment and the natural resources. The energy consumption is accumulative of different aspects, such as buildings, transportation, industrial and other sectors. The building sector is the largest consumer of the energy. The energy consumption in the building is accumulative of different aspects of the annual usage, such as cooling, heating, lighting, and others. For instance, lighting consumes up to 22 % in the commercial buildings and 14% in the residential buildings in the hot-arid climate (Arizona). Therefore, this study focuses on proposing a method of daylight optimization that leads to Net-zero energy buildings in the hot-arid climate. Achieving Net Zero buildings needs high efficient buildings at the first step to make the task more affordable. By exploring and applying the daylight optimization strategies, energy consumption will be reduced in the way that cut down the CO2 emissions and the air pollution. These strategies attempt to turn off the artificial lighting during the useful daylight illuminance and provides a comfortable level for the occupancies. The Daylight passive technique usually categories under three main topics, which are the Sidelighting, Toplighting, and Corelighting. Furthermore, the daylight performance is assessed through different methods, such as daylight factor, daylight autonomy, glare index and the useful daylight illuminance. The method in this study is proposing passive daylight strategies and, testing how the new strategy would contribute to achieving the net-zero status, and validate the results (physical and digital experiments have been conducted to achieve the optimum proposal) to maintain the daylight through the building envelope (shading device, and fenestrations orientation sizes and materials).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was first recognized in veterans of war and called shellshock, and in later years defined by numerous other names. Since 2001 the rate of PTSD within Veterans has increased to the same percentage as that found in the Vietnam War, and I’ve questioned, “what is being done for them on an environmental level”? How is the built environment benefiting them by reducing forms of stimulation that “triggers” or induces unstable behavior? With extensive research the clear answer was that nothing is being done within our built environment, aside from a few guidelines to design to lessen negative impacts. Equally, nothing out in high armed conflict nor in overseas installations that provide rehabilitation care units to wounded warriors are bridging therapy done out there to that done in the United States. The fact is that there is a lack of connection and familiarity with a “sanctity” out in warfare for those with PTSD and this is what inspired this thesis and the innovative design it discusses. A built environment with sustainable architectural parameters will not only allow a “sanctity” to be undetectable and a secure unit for self-rehabilitation as a parallel helper to other forms of therapy for PTSD in conflicted areas, but will equally create an intimacy with the built environment that leads to personal security to enable one to take the necessary steps to continuing rehabilitation after returning home to the United States.