The potential importance of the built-environment microbiome and its impact on human health.

There is increasing evidence that interactions between microbes and their hosts not only play a role in determining health and disease but also in emotions, thought, and behavior. Built environments greatly influence microbiome exposures because of their built-in highly specific microbiomes coproduced with myriad metaorganisms including humans, pets, plants, rodents, and insects. Seemingly static built structures host complex ecologies of microorganisms that are only starting to be mapped.

Addressing a systematic error correcting for free and mixed convection when measuring mean radiant temperature with globe thermometers.

It is widely accepted that most people spend the majority of their lives indoors. Most individuals do not realize that while indoors, roughly half of heat exchange affecting their thermal comfort is in the form of thermal infrared radiation. We show that while researchers have been aware of its thermal comfort significance over the past century, systemic error has crept into the most common evaluation techniques, preventing adequate characterization of the radiant environment.

A fresh (air) look at ventilation for COVID-19: Estimating the global energy savings potential of coupling natural ventilation with novel radiant cooling strategies.

Radiant cooling-assisted natural ventilation is an innovative technical approach that combines new radiant cooling technology with natural ventilation to increase fresh air delivery into buildings year-round with minimal energy cost and improvment of air quality. Currently, the standard paradigm for HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) is based on central air systems that tie the delivery of heating and cooling to the delivery of fresh air. To prevent heat loss, the delivery of fresh air must be tightly controlled and is often limited through recirculation of already heated or cooled air.

The Building Data Genome Project 2, energy meter data from the ASHRAE Great Energy Predictor III competition.

This paper describes an open data set of 3,053 energy meters from 1,636 non-residential buildings with a range of two full years (2016 and 2017) at an hourly frequency (17,544 measurements per meter resulting in approximately 53.6 million measurements). These meters were collected from 19 sites across North America and Europe, with one or more meters per building measuring whole building electrical, heating and cooling water, steam, and solar energy as well as water and irrigation meters.

Membrane-assisted radiant cooling for expanding thermal comfort zones globally without air conditioning.

We present results of a radiant cooling system that made the hot and humid tropical climate of Singapore feel cool and comfortable. Thermal radiation exchange between occupants and surfaces in the built environment can augment thermal comfort. The lack of widespread commercial adoption of radiant-cooling technologies is due to two widely held views: 1) The low temperature required for radiant cooling in humid environments will form condensation; and 2) cold surfaces will still cool adjacent air via convection, limiting overall radiant-cooling effectiveness.

Wheat yield potential in controlled-environment vertical farms.

Scaling current cereal production to a growing global population will be a challenge. Wheat supplies approximately one-fifth of the calories and protein for human diets. Vertical farming is a possible promising option for increasing future wheat production.

Occupant-centered optimization framework to evaluate and design new dynamic shading typologies.

Dynamic solar shading has the potential to dramatically reduce the energy consumption in buildings while at the same time improving the thermal and visual comfort of its occupants. Many new typologies of shading systems that have appeared recently, but it is difficult to compare those new systems to existing typologies due to control algorithm being rule-based as opposed to performance driven. Since solar shading is a design problem, there is no single right answer.

Air temperature and mean radiant temperature data, collected and simulated across a radiantly-heated high-bay laboratory.

To better understand the extent of how the air temperature and mean radiant temperature may vary both spatially and temporally in a radiantly heated space, we conducted a seven-day experiment in the architectural laboratory at School of Architecture, Princeton University. The primary intent of this paper was to decouple the measurement of the air temperature and mean radiant temperature. We collected a large dataset that shows temporal and spatial variations.

Globe thermometer free convection error potentials.

For thermal comfort research, globe thermometers have become the de facto tool for mean radiant temperature, t, measurement. They provide a quick means to survey the radiant environment in a space with nearly a century of trials to reassure researchers. However, as more complexity is introduced to built environments, we must reassess the accuracy of globe measurements.