A high performance building is designed and operated to minimise environmental impact whilst providing an indoor environment that maximises occupant health and comfort. The wealth of academic research into technical and non-technical solutions for high performance building continues to grow. However, industry utilisation of academic research is limited and inconsistent due to a number of...

Australian cities are experiencing more heat stress in the 21st century than ever before. Public life in a majority of Australian cities suffer from heat stress in urban heat islands. This paper presents the concept of spatial heat resilience as the capability of the built environment to support outdoor activities during heat stress conditions. Outdoor...

A building is responsible for the emission of a significant amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the various stages of its life cycle. Industry and government have been primarily focused on assessing and implementing mitigation measures related to the operational GHG emissions of buildings, leaving the emissions related to other life cycle stages, such...

Cities currently host more than half of the world population, a number which is projected to continue to rise. Urban centres also create large percentages of national gross domestic product (GDP) and are important sources of employment but also generate large proportions of national greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change and fast technological progress, among other...

Thermal modelling of buildings typically involves the use of software programs that are highly accurate but complex. As such many users do not have a good “feel” for how heat flows in and out of a building. The simplest type of manual calculation method is a steady state model which allows some insight into the...