Green architecture

The last few decades can be characterized, socially and physically, by rapid shifts and intense impacts. Climate changes year after year, as does advanced technology and human behaviour. Environmental catastrophes and infectious outbreaks force the reforming of entire cities and regions, imposing high human and economic costs. The built environment cannot keep up with these deviations-rather it simply, in best case scenarios, endeavour to limit damages. Through our ongoing research into flexible architecture, particularly in residential projects, the most common perceptions have expensive a negative connotation. For many industry professionals, flexible design has been branded as costly, difficult to deploy, and demanding state-of-the-art gadgetry. Such views have been driven, in part, by technical attempts to future-proof buildings through the application of specific parameters such as movable partitions or pursuing over-engineering. Why then, after more than a century of attempts to design for flexibility, the issue is still marginalized to the profession at large? Through reviewing of the existing literature, it became clear that design approaches have focused primarily on physical flexibility (e.g., floor-to-ceiling height, structural load, organization of space, etc.). This overly narrow approach arguably leaves the user and the environment out of the equation, leading to inevitable failure of the built-environment's capacity to respond to social or environmental changes. The present research argues that achieving flexible buildings demands a more balanced and integrated approach, namely the pursuit and realization of Agile Architecture. A re-conceptualization is needed that goes beyond matters of physical durability to more nuanced views of buildings as socialized products constantly in the making and always responding to a milieu of change. The present research contextualizes the unifying principles of Agile design by underlining the industry mindset (via a survey to illuminate barriers against formulating/implementing such a holistic approach) and studying current residential design practices (via seminal cases of projects strategically drawn from global cities, illustrating progressive concepts within the design, legislative and/or financial ethos). The present paper positions Agile Architecture in the context of environmental, social and economic sustainability, then delineates progress along a multifaceted journey that aspires to dramatically reconsider the way we design buildings.

Tubular daylight guidance systems were developed to introduce daylight into the building's core. Operating the system in desert climate regions, where both solar irradiance and dust resources are abundant, exposes them to dust accumulation that significantly reduces the system's efficiency. An experimental investigation was conducted in Cairo to understanding dirt accumulation patterns and impact, and to recommend suitable cleaning procedures. It was found that dust accumulation during three rainless periods, of 44 days each, could reduce the illuminance transmittance by up to 38%. The dust accumulation was found to decrease the system efficiency in a near-linear fashion with a 0.5% daily reduction. The highest illuminance transmittance magnitude and ratio were observed at midday, followed by the morning period and then the afternoon period. Similarly, the transmittance loss by the end of the experiment was found to be around 31%, 26% and 13% at noon, morning and afternoon respectively. It was found that the transmittance loss under a clear sky is up to 25% more than that under a cloudy sky. Further work needs to be done to examine other meteorological factors. Based on the study findings, it is recommended to clean the solar devices bimonthly to restore the system's efficiency.