Globally, only 2% of existing building stock is built yearly; the remaining 98% already exist. Energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort of the existing building stock are not encouraging. This is due to many challenges associated with existing buildings; the challenges range from cracks, leakages, poor insulation, heat losses and high rate of unsustainable technologies. This paper investigates possible barriers facing the adoption and application of sustainable technologies (STs) for sustainable or energy-efficient upgrade of existing buildings. New STs are manufactured on a regular basis to meet improved energy efficiency standards, yet there are minimal actions/attempts to adopt and apply improved technologies in existing buildings for energy efficiency. Indeed, there are limited studies focused on the use of qualitative approaches to identify barriers to adoption and use of STs. Thus, a semi-structured interview approach was adopted and applied using sustainability/energy efficiency professionals, building services engineers, project managers, architects, and facility managers in Australia. The results indicate that barriers to the adoption and application of sustainable technologies are perceived benefits in demolish-and-build, age of building, cost of STs, perceived poor payback time, unreliable energy-savings projections, existing design, hidden and overall cost of renovation, and cost of STs.

The Australian Department of Commerce builds many secondary schools in New South Wales every year, and the impact of energy consumption for such a type of construction has rarely been done before in Australia. Although there is a particular responsibility to ensure that public-owned projects contribute to the future well-being of the natural environment, environmental performance and energy efficiency of public projects are not well studied. In order that more informed design and planning decisions can be made about the future construction of school projects, this research paper uses life cycle energy analysis to study the total energy consumption of 20 public secondary school projects in New South Wales. The results will serve as a model for a more comprehensive analysis of energy consumption in establishing environmental performance criteria for the design and construction of future school projects in New South Wales. Le ministère australien du Commerce construit chaque année de nombreuses écoles secondaires dans la province de Nouvelle Galles du Sud; l'étude de l'impact de la consommation d'énergie de ce type de bâtiment a rarement été faite auparavant en Australie. Bien qu'il existe une responsabilité particulière à s'assurer que les projets contribuent au développement harmonieux de l'environnement naturel, les performances environnementales et l'efficacité énergétique des projets publics ne font pas l'objet d'études sérieuses. Pour que l'on puisse prendre des décisions mieux étayées en matière de conception et de planning de futurs projets de construction d'écoles, cette communication s'appuie sur l'analyse énergétique du cycle de vie pour étudier la consommation énergétique totale de 20 projets d'écoles secondaires publiques en Nouvelle Galles du Sud. Les résultats obtenus serviront de modèles à une analyse plus complète de la consommation d'énergie en établissant des critères de performances environnementales applicables à la conception et à la construction de futures écoles en Nouvelle Galles du Sud. Mots clés: Performances des bâtiments, énergie intégrée, analyse énergétique du cycle de vie, énergie opérationnelle, bâtiments publics, écoles

Energy-efficient retrofitting has emerged as a primary strategy for reducing the energy consumption of buildings. Buildings in China account for about 40% of total national energy consumption. Large office buildings account for the most. Less than 5% of the building area of existing office buildings is energy efficient. Energy-efficient retrofitting for sustainable buildings is a complicated system that involves various sustainable dimensions and operational technical schemes. Making multi-criteria decisions becomes a challenging problem for stakeholders. Based on the theory of sustainability, this paper establishes a sustainable analysis framework to guide stakeholders to select an optimal technical combination of energy-efficient retrofit measures for large office buildings. Based on empirical data collected in Beijing, a number of energy efficiency measures are selected, tailored and applied to a virtual model of a typical large office building. Technical features and the energy performance are simulated accordingly. The energy consumption, energy-saving ratio and lifecycle costs are derived to identify the optimal configuration. The outcome of this research offers a feasible technical plan for stakeholders relating to technical design and design making. The study finds that an LED lighting system and frequency conversion device for the cooling water chiller cannot only sufficiently reduce the building’s energy consumption but also perform economically. Different thermal insulation materials for reconstructing the building envelope have no obvious effect on the thermal performance in comprehensive simulations of technology combinations. The sustainable analysis framework offers theoretical and practical support and can be used as a reference for the other types of buildings in future research.

This paper presents a study of the effects of wind-induced airflow through the urban built layout pattern using statistical analysis. This study investigates the association between typically enclosed office building layout patterns and the wind environment. First of all, this study establishes an ideal site model of 200 m × 200 m and obtains four typical multi-story enclosed office building group layouts, namely the multi-yard parallel opening, the multi-yard returning shape opening, the overall courtyard parallel opening, and the overall courtyard returning shape opening. Then, the natural ventilation performance of different building morphologies is further evaluated via the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation software Phoenics. This study compares wind speed distribution at an outdoor pedestrian height (1.5 m). Finally, the natural ventilation performance corresponding to the four layout forms is obtained, which showed that the outdoor wind environment of the multi-yard type is more comfortable than the overall courtyard type, and the degree of enclosure of the building group is related to the advantages and disadvantages of the outdoor wind environment. The quantitative relevance between building layout and wind environment is examined, according to which the results of an ameliorated layout proposal are presented and assessed by Phoenics. This research could provide a method to create a livable urban wind environment.

In 2010, the Australian residential construction sector contributed about 28% of the value of all construction and was responsible for 8% of the total energy consumption. Residential construction will continue to increase to cope with the demand due to population growth. Owing to land scarcity, construction on sloping sites has become a common construction method for residential development in Australia. This method has economic benefits but poses environmental issues as it damages topsoil, disturbs natural drainage and groundwater pathways and imposes additional stress on soil under fill. The life cycle energy consumption of the construction process is examined in relation to residential projects on sloping sites on a range of slopes and soil types in New South Wales, Australia. Forty-one detached dwellings were selected and a service life of 60 years assumed for the study. The research findings reveal that the slope for each type of soil has a positive correlation with life cycle energy consumption. As part of the onsite construction process, the results also show that the energy consumption of construction on sloping sites plays a significant factor in the life cycle energy analysis of a building.