Enes Yasa

The re-functioning of historical buildings frequently necessitates new additions. This is particularly relevant for historical buildings with open courtyards, where interventions often involve the installation of upper covers using contemporary materials and techniques This issue can become especially apparent in historical buildings that are completely enclosed with transparent materials, raising concerns about the greenhouse effect and its potential to compromise indoor comfort. In this context, the objective of this study is to develop a methodology and model to assessing and optimizing roof covering designs. The model consists of two phases. The first phase involves conducting a visual harmony analysis within the developed algorithm, using parametric model pattern alternatives created in Rhinoceros3D/Grasshopper3D. The second phase focuses on optimizing visual comfort parameters, including sDA, UDIuseful, UDIupper and DGP. The optimal pattern is determined by evaluating a variety property of transparent surfaces such as solar heat gain, light transmittance, and area using the Ladybug, Honeybee plugins. The options constitute via Colibri plugin. The case study chosen for this investigation is one of Mimar Sinan’s building in Istanbul. This choice is motivated by the increasing intervention of enclosed to open courtyards in madrasah buildings from this era. The construction system is proposed to use steel, with ETFE for the transparent surfaces. Consequently, the outcomes demonstrate the model is feasible for interventions.

Conserving historic buildings is essential for transmitting cultural heritage to future generations, but achieving energy efficiency remains a significant challenge. Augmented Reality (AR) offers an innovative approach to conserving historic buildings by integrating energy efficiency improvements into building physics and restoration. AR supports decision-making by overlaying virtual elements onto physical environments, allowing real-time visualization of energy interventions and their impacts. In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), AR aligns energy performance metrics with the physical realities of historical buildings, enabling pre-analysis of energy strategies to optimize performance while conserving building authenticity. This chapter systematically examines the role of AR in the energy performance and retrofit processes of historical buildings, using research from major databases. Additionally, analyses were interpreted and future studies suggested by Artificial Intelligence (AI). It highlights AR's potential to contribute to energy efficiency, offering a novel approach to the sustainable conservation of cultural heritage.

Construction industry is open to innovation and change. The evolution of information technologies led these technologies to be integrated also into building production processes, and it is aimed to carry out the building production processes in a faster, systematic and controlled manner. In this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, which are information technologies used in building production processes, are widely encountered. Many conveniences are provided in building production processes in integrated projects carried out with BIM processes and VR tools. The study aims to identify the objectives, strengths and weaknesses of using BIM and VR integration in building production processes and to evaluate them in the context of potential threats and opportunities. A literature review and a company survey based on user experiences have been conducted in this study.

In urban design, the shape and form of the building and the layout of the buildings on the topography significantly influence the microclimatic comfort quality at the pedestrian level or in the public spaces all around the buildings by directing the winds to the streets and the designed open spaces. In this study, The Arabahmet region, one of the oldest historical settlements and cultural heritage of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, is located within the capital city of Nicosia, Cyprus, and the continuation of the Arabahmet doctrine under the control of the United Nations, which is now between the territories of Southern part of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). This region has been a witness to many urban and periodical experiences over a wide period of time, covering many ages. This settlement is one of the settlement areas in which the Ottoman Empire and Republican periods, especially the Byzantine empire, and rarely seen the chance to see the official and civic influences on a city together. The overall aim of the study is to reveal the general potentials of the historic land of the Arabahmet region, which is about to become a depressed region due to different reasons, in many parameters, especially the physical comfort criteria.

The air flow between building interior and the courtyard to form via natural convection in hot-dry climatic regions are achieved with the help of wind pressure in other warm-humid and hot-humid climatic areas. Therefore, it is necessary to take into consideration and to humid other openings of the building which might change the effectiveness of the air movement to form due to wind effect in courtyard buildings. Therefore, wind tunnel experimental ways were developed and examined first in this study for the purpose of gaining knowledge on the effect of the wind on the cooling load of the atrium and courtyard buildings, and information to allow pre-estimation of the air flow to take place at the surface openings of such structures. Since numerical methods would not be enough alone in particular with regard to the wind, the planned study on the models was realized via the experimental method in a wind tunnel; and also Computational Fluid Dynamics numerical analyses were realized. This is a wind tunnel experimental study for the investigation of various architectural solutions for better cooling and ventilation through examination of the air flow passing through the surface openings of courtyard structures and for revelation of the effects of those results on the cooling and ventilation load. In this context, a courtyard building model was made to experiment on. Example courtyard building models were acquired by modifying various parameters (courtyard and gap area rates) to assess the test data from the boundary layer wind tunnel of wind-supported natural ventilation event of the example model courtyard structure used in the study.

The aim of the study in this chapter is to investigate performances shown by courtyard buildings, used widely both as microclimate regulators and as city-wide climate stabilizers especially in the hot-dry climate regions. Furthermore, this study examines atrium buildings having an increasing usage rate in recent years and the presence of comfort problems in particular which have not been resolved for different climate regions. Wind velocity measurements are performed in 36 different points determined in X and Y directions and 17 different points in the Z dimension on the outside of the courtyard considered in this study. In addition, both atrium building typology model and courtyard building typology model are obtained by taking the average courtyard dimensions seen in many regions; by covering open space courtyard section of the geometry with a transparent glass, atrium and courtyard typologies can be obtained. Furthermore, thermal comfort states and energy performances of these two different building typologies in interior courtyard and in building internal volumes for hot-dry, hot-humid and cold climate region conditions as well as the effect of solar radiation values exposing the building surfaces and solar movements during the day on the thermal performance on the building are analysed with CFD FloEFD and Star CCM+ software.