Historical buildings in their physical architecture, with their grand historic walls are a celebration of time, a story of the past. Beyond their architectural style they reflect the past and hold within them community, memories, and an era of the past that many community members hold dear to their hearts. Generations later stories are told, and if we are lucky, the buildings are still standing, repurposed or rehabilitated, to continue to hold not only history but a continued place to continue to hold future history along with it. Their history is not necessarily woven into the years of the walls themselves, but the memories they hold within them. With global warming and the current energy crisis it is important to prioritize energy efficiency measures to ensure a future availability of resources worldwide. Many energy efficient strategies, since not all are new, are often being implemented in buildings constructed in the past. The innovation on solutions for solving human safety and even human comfort are rooted in the very meaning of architecture from the beginning. It is then of main concern that, nowadays, these clear connection between architecture and environmental strategies are disconnected. Technological innovation has ended up challenging the relationship between environmentalist and historical preservationist. It is perceived that these professionals work in contrasting ends of the architectural fields, when, as it will be demonstrated, historical building in one hand bring simplified understanding of how accurately react to local environments, and on the other hand, state of the art environmental technology can preserve the buildings in better and long-lasting conditions. It is commonly seen that these fundamental approaches to applied knowledge are not collaborating and often it seems that they negate one another. Specifically addressing the neglected areas of deep analysis in the integration of new technologies to historic building, this document states how the field faces barriers for its implementation. Energy efficient strategies currently have the potential to threaten the historic integrity of a building, threatening its removal from the National Register of Historic Places. Developing strategies that compliment both disciplines is a necessity to ensure the protection of our heritage and protect the future of our built environment. Environmental and a historical preservation principles are applied to this research. The Goal is to create a methodology for bringing together the two disciplines to complement one another. This, in turn, has the potential to protect historical architecture and the future of the built environment simultaneously. This research concentrates on a residential home that is a contributing property in the Armory Park Historical District located in Tucson, AZ, which, due to the local environmental condition, faces extreme heat and aridity. The energy efficiency of this house is currently poor due, partially, to the absence of shading neither from architectural features nor from surrounding tree canopy or other vegetation, the latter being a strategy encouraged by historical preservationist. Therefore, this absence exposes the home to the harsh climatic conditions reducing its energy efficiency. A level III energy audit was performed on the home followed by a deep analysis using eQUEST software. Research was conducted to represent Mesquite trees, a successfully grown tree in the region, to create a simulation in eQUEST and study the effects of planting this species around a home and their effects on energy efficiency. It is found that the strategic placement of trees around this historical residence does not allow for solar radiation to affect the conditions of the context and the home itself. This research implemented eight different iterations of tree placements around the home. The iterations varied from one tree to six trees resulting in energy savings ranging from 9.53% to 10.90%. Water consumption to support a mesquite tree during the first four years to establish them was also analyzed. These trees would require 518 gallons of water per year, totaling 2072 gallons over a four-year period. This was then converted into its energy use equivalent in Kwh equating to 777 Kwh per year, or 3108 Kwh total for all four years per tree. Surface temperatures surrounding the home were also taken of the base case and an adjacent home to determine the differences between similar surfaces shaded by tree canopy and one lacking shading, these results reflected in a temperature differential of 30°F. In summary, research through data collection of surface temperatures, climate station analysis, energy audits, and energy simulation software was used to analyze current and simulated conditions. The results demonstrated the benefit of the implementation of strategically placed trees. To support future research, climate stations were implemented to collect data in neighboring homes microclimates, one containing vegetation and shade trees, and the other lacking, for a period of one day. Although this comparative study provided a glimpse at the varied microclimate from one home to the other and how this could affect the structures they surround, this data was not enough to support the differences in climate throughout a calendar year. This one-day pilot must inspire future effort to collect and analyze seasonal, annual and multiyear data for establishing reliable trends and patterns that lead to cost-effective and long-lasting strategies. Long term observations will also optimize the solutions and avoid unnecessary additions to the building that unfairly threaten its Historical Preservation value.

The environmental consequences of nonrenewable energy production are present in Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Saudi energy production depends on fossil fuel combustion, which combined with energy production processes, results in the production of anthropogenic heat and greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases raise the concentration of these gases in the atmospheric boundary layer and contribute to the creation of an inversion layer (Sahashi, Hieda, and Yamashita 531-535). This leads to changing climatological parameters and the formation of urban heat islands. The urban heat island phenomena affects the environment around buildings. Rising temperatures are accompanied by extreme heat in the hot, arid, desert weather experienced during the day in Makkah, KSA. The urban heat island effect disturbs buildings’ indoor human thermal comfort. As a result, the building sector in Saudi Arabia accounts for 78% of the energy consumption and cooling load count for 70% of the total (BUILDINGS | Saudi Energy Efficiency Center 2018). Cooling systems produce heat waste, which counts as a source of anthropogenic heat, one of the principles of urban heat island formation that results in a high demand for energy production and anthropogenic heat again. This research aims to mitigate urban heat island formation by focusing on anthropogenic heat reduction from the building itself and power plants (energy consumption and energy production) by applying two packages of energy conservation strategies - Passive and Active - on a case study building in design phase. eQUEST energy modeling software was used to calculate the building’s annual consumption as well as energy saving from the case study after implementing energy conservation strategies. The strategies implemented in this study reduced the energy consumption from 1,119,600 kWh to 535,000 kWh. This accounts for a 53 % reduction of energy consumption, which in turn prevents the release of 730 metric tons of CO2. In summary, the building has a crucial impact on the local environment, and a well-designed building can enhance building energy performance, maintain energy production sources, and prevents climatological changes that happen due to anthropogenic heat production and energy consumption.

The University of Arizona Main Campus is located in the city of Tucson, Arizona. A place that confronts high air temperatures and extreme solar radiation almost all year around. Currently, more than 38,000 students are enrolled as full-time facing the extreme climate conditions of heat. Thousands of students walk from one place to another experiencing uncomfortable walks causing them heat stress. Campus infrastructure is not capable to interact with the weather conditions of Tucson. The lack of shaded paths, materials with high emissivity of heat, nonnative vegetation, among other factors, make the walks unpleasant. This challenge affects people's health and consecutively the performance of cooling systems once the people enter to buildings overheated. Outdoor human thermal comfort in arid and desert areas is a relevant topic that carries implications and benefits on people and buildings performance. The amount and intensity of activities within individuals affects the level of comfort.

Purpose: There is a worldwide movement towards sustainability. A stepping-stone towards a sustainability conscience population starts in the education of the younger generation. Focusing on improving sustainability education will shift and shape youths' interests and lifestyles into an educated community that will work sustainably. A sustainability conscience community will continue to make moral sustainable decisions in their future endeavors. The gap between theory and practice of sustainability is substantial. Educational institutions must be the leaders in this subject to mold future generations’ incoming leaders into sustainability conscious critical thinkers. Current environmental issues such as climate change, CO2 Emissions, poverty and so on must impact these educational institutions to make sustainability education a priority in its curriculum. Addressing this problem requires a holistic approach which integrates sustainability education earlier on to grasp further understanding of sustainability actions in higher education and in society. Sustainability education exists in all levels. Although, sustainability education is much more prominent in higher education institutions as opposed to Elementary, Middle, and High Schools. Consequently, less students are prepared with the desired sustainability knowledge needed in higher education and students' future careers to instill in their disciplines since behavior is achieved through repetitive actions that were not set as a foundation earlier in their education. Approach: There were two approaches in this research. The first research approach was conducting a survey in 120 students, half of them in secondary education and the other half in higher education. The survey was formatted to analyze three different questions: 1) whether students in high school and higher education knew about sustainability 2) whether students' lifestyle consisted of pro-environmental actions, 3) and whether they learned to perform these actions in secondary education or higher education. The second approach was to create an educational tool to implement sustainability behavioral change strategies in their everyday lifestyles. Findings: Study found that most students are aware about sustainability. However, most students engage in pro-environmental actions in higher education because they started learning about them in higher education. Therefore, although most secondary education students are aware about sustainability, they aren't engaging in pro-environmental actions. In conclusion, a sustainability toolkit was created based on behavioral change strategies to reduce water usage, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and waste output in their school and everyday lifestyles. Value: The efforts of sustainability in Higher Education have been clear in most recent years, although, there is still much resistance to change, transform and reimagine society and education for sustainability. The future of life and social world on Earth is in jeopardy since poverty, climate change, and lack of peace is occurring worldwide. Sustainability education must respond and act on this challenge subsequently to respect all forms of life and future generations. The mission of the sustainability toolkit is to create a pedagogy to assist educational institutions and communities to develop the skills and knowledge to work sustainably.

Buildings, especially in hot climates, consume a lot of energy when people want to be comfortable inside them, which translates to very expensive fees each month. The most innovative response to this problem is renewable energy, that is used, in this case, to run mechanical HVAC systems. Renewable energy is the solution for many problems, but to avoid urban heat islands when using excessive HVAC systems (powered by renewables), and to solve thermal comfort-related problems, there has to be other solution. The major challenge to find it would be to have a change of thinking process. If a building in a hot-arid region uses natural processes to emulate the functions of HVAC systems, and the proper passive strategies, then, it will provide thermal comfort to its users, diminishing the need of a mechanical system. This hypothesis will be carried out by extracting the natural processes found in a specific case in nature, applying them into a building's design, and then simulating its energy efficiency with the adequate software. There will be a comparison of the same proposed building without the natural processes, to have tangible numbers showing that these proposed strategies, in fact, work. With explanatory detailed diagrams and the energy analysis, the hypothesis could be proven correct or incorrect. The significance of this approach relies on the proximity to the natural processes that have been working in different aspects of life since the beginning of time. They have been there all the time, waiting until architects, engineers, and people in general use them, instead of making more new energy-using inventions. By having the numbers from a conventional building and the ones of the proposed building, and the right environmental diagrams, the experiment should be valid. In the near future, there should be more research focused on nature and its processes, in order to be able to reduce the use of mechanical systems, and with that, reduce the energy use and the carbon footprint.

The City of New Albany’s local government is proposing a renovation and demolition project to the current low-income housing options. The New Albany Housing Authority has expressed interest in high performing energy buildings for the new designs, but few plans have been produced for the project. The large-scale project has the opportunity to greatly benefit the entire city of New Albany, as well as providing environmental implications to the local and global community. New Albany is a suburban town located in the south central point of Indiana, bordering the urban area of Louisville, KY and only separated by the Ohio River. New Albany is a city with a population of roughly 35,000 peoples who primarily work the urban areas within and surrounding New Albany. Low-income housing and sustainable design are closely linked due to the nature of living conditions and budgeting low-income families face. The difference in energy and utility costs between a poor and high performing building for a low-income family could alter their financial burdens and bring them out of low-income status over time. Low-income families traditionally are forced to live in housing that is poorly cared for and constructed, creating a variety of health issues and reduces the quality of life for those who are already in crisis situations. Introducing sustainable housing to low-income families is critical to the City of New Albany as over 500 housing units are going to be demolished and redesigned to better improve the quality of life for the affected population. Proposed design strategies to be tested focus of cost effective strategies as well as the law of diminishing return. Primarily the strategies tested will be orientation, daylight, ventilation, insulation, shading, infrastructure upgrades, and geometries. The proposed geometries to be tested alongside the base case unit are as follows: single unit, duplex units, row housing units, and multistory units. The aim of this study is to test and create proven results to suggest for building design guidelines on the basis of energy performance and cost affordability and effectiveness. From this study, the efficiencies of three tiered strategies were found and tested against the differing geometries. The row-housing unit had the best initial, baseline performance and when all tiers of strategies were applied the resulting energy consumption was at 10,000 kWh equating to roughly $1,080 annually. This drastically lower cost would allow for low-income families to create change in their life and improve their overall quality of life.

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.

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.

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.