Buildings account for 40% of total energy consumption in the European Union. The indica-tions are that this will increase, simply because of growth in the number of buildings over time. It is also important to have in account that bioclimatic design and building engineering physics issues, directly related to energy performance and to well-being of the occupants, should be properly...
The construction industry accounts for 15 % of all greenhouse gas emissions. During their use phase, buildings use 40 % of the total energy consumption, which contributes significantly to air pollution and other environmental impacts. While the energy consumption during the use phase is predicted to decrease as efficient buildings, like zero and near zero energy buildings, become more common,...
Wood modification (chemical, thermal, impregnation) represents an assortment of innovative processes continually being adopted in the wood protection sector. COST Action FP1407 (Understanding wood modification through an integrated scientific and environmental impact approach - ModWoodLife) was initiated in 2015, with its 4-year programme aiming to investigate modification processing and...
Paper deals with phenomena of taste for modern or traditional approach by creating built environment and its elements with particular surfaces. It is related to the research project Identity- SK- common platform of design, architecture and social sciences, where is a main goal to explore regional identity within socio-cultural sustainability and well-being and the possibilities of its...
Residential satisfaction is a frequently studied topic in recent decades as it can offer important insights into the quality of residential environment, beneficial both from theoretical perspective as well as for practical purposes. One of the most prominently used methods of measuring residential satisfaction is the use of self-assessment questionnaires measuring satisfaction by assessing...
The densification, i.e. transverse compression of solid wood can lead to improvements in the mechanical properties, and this opens up new applications for low-density wood species, in particular. For the past one hundred years, many efforts have been made to mass-produce densified wood products, but despite being available on the market, they still are niche products with annual production...
Sustainable approaches in retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency are becoming inevitable in the time of global climate change. Retrofitting existing building stock can be effective in reducing global energy consumption and decreasing resource over-exploitation. However, less developed EU member states and neighboring developing countries show reluctance towards healthy and renewable...
The biggest stress on the sustainability of our environment is caused by the construction industry. More than 30% of the global pollution emissions are caused by the development of the built environment without ecological awareness. It is time for the conscious design process, to shape our built environment in a sustainable and humane way, in accordance with nature. The creative students and...
The hydrophilic nature of wood is based on its structural anisotropy and its strong affinity to hydroxyl functional groups (mainly due to the polysaccharides present in its structure), making wood very reactive with water. The environmental factors can cause instability to the wood matrix and its deterioration, thus, several wood modification techniques have been developed to ensure its...
The classification of logs in the forest is the first stage in the evaluation of wood's technical quality and serves as the point of departure for subsequent tasks needed to trade and evaluate wood. For ages, wood quality was assessed without the use of advanced technologies, and only by visual inspection (Berglund et al. 2015). In reality, many properties of wood are mutually correlated,...
Renewable wooden products exposed to continuously variable outdoor climates are strongly affected by the moisture levels in the material. High moisture contents accumulated in wood dur-ing long periods, in combination with favorable temperatures, represent a risk for the durability of thermally modified wood products because of the decay development. In this context, numer-ical simulations can...
Office buildings represent one of the most common public building with extremely high cool-ing energy demand and corresponding negative environmental impact in Central Europe. Due to the high wall-window ratio of this building type, the indoor thermal and visual comfort suffers, as a consequence of characteristic summer overheating and winter heat loss.
The current office building design...
UV LED printing technology can be used for printing directly on wood which enables new options for unique printed wooden elements in the interior and exterior design. With the appropriate design and processing technology all kinds of wood samples and end products (doors, furniture elements etc.) can be enriched and their added value can be raised. Depending on the application’s end use, a pre...
Smart home systems can make the living more comfortable. Moreover they may provide ways to save energy, thus they can help to achieve sustainable buildings. The possibilities are wide and the energy savings can be as high as 45%. To achieve such high values the capabilities of the smart home system must be known to the person using it. The Department of Technology possesses a working smart...
A fundamental problem of the sustainable built environment development represents the poor optimisation content in the design process. While first studies focus on algorithms for only one particular subsystem (e.g. insulation, shading, heating generation, etc.), the overall complete building optimisation is still missing. Though, the patented Energia Design Method applies sophisticated energy,...
The increased concern regarding mould on wood-based building materials has raised demand for sustainable biocidal treatments to protect early contamination during the construction stage of timber buildings. By providing surface protection for all type of wood-based construction elements already at the construction site will reduce the mould-associated risk for not only the construction...
Australian sawn-board product is regulated by timber’s physical and mechanical properties to ensure safe operating performances in context specific applications. Contemporary and emerging timber resources however, are lacking the traditional properties of commercially sawn products, namely density. One technique used to improve timber properties is densification through thermo-hydro-mechanical...
Integration of sensors or any other diagnostic technology directly into a material or structure is a way to increase the safety level of the construction and provide other features as online diagnostics, predictive maintenance or a functionality of early warning in case of component failure. Many of the available embedded sensor technologies suffer from limited lifetime or necessity to have a...
Cross laminated timber (CLT) is one of the most popular engineered wood products. The main species used for this product is spruce. To respond to the strongly increasing demand of CLT, it will become necessary to also investigate additional raw material resources for its production. Pine – having in mind its availability, mechanical properties and ability to grow even in regions with poor...