Author(s)

Amal Kamal Mohamed Shamseldin

Architectural Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Some building components are responsible for achieving more than one environmental function, these functions are usually of different requirements that can never be done by the same actions, and they are usually connected to changeable internal and external environment characteristics that vary among them. Minimizing the conflict of achieving the different environmental functions is an important challenge for all designers. Achieving a continuous thermal and optical comfort in an internal building space using the same window is an example of this challenge, as they have different requirements that may be sometimes contrary. It should be notable that there are a lot of recent technologies that may be used to find solutions for such a conflict. The Environmental Assessment Methods of Buildings appeared to set the principles of the optimum relation between buildings and their environment, they also could be used to encourage designers to reach the best environmental relations, and award them by main or additional assessment points. The research paper proposes to use the Environmental Assessment Methods of Buildings to assess the building ability of minimizing its environmental functions achievement conflict. This proposal depends on determining the inconsistency assessment items that depend on common building components to be achieved, and then determining the time periods that these items are achieved together within, to indicate the time periods without conflicting. Thus, the paper aims to raise the building environmental value in the assessment when the designer succeeds to minimize the expected conflict of the building environmental functions.

Human Comfort, Environmental Assessment Methods of Buildings, Periodical Variables, Sequential and Sudden Variables, Building Functions Conflict, Building Automation and Control

Shamseldin, A. (2016) Assessment of Minimizing the Environmental Functions Conflict in Buildings. Journal of Building Construction and Planning Research, 4, 119-129. doi: 10.4236/jbcpr.2016.42008.