This paper presents the design strategies and energy performance of a net-zero energy house (NZEH), Nature Between, which was designed and built to participate in the Solar Decathlon China 2018 competition. The specific parts of the design strategies for Nature Between, including architectural concept, materials, passive strategies and active strategies, are introduced and analyzed. This study includes a discussion of the building’s energy performance based on the measured data gathered in Dezhou, where the competition was held. And also the annual energy simulation using Energyplus software based on the climate of Xiamen, where the prototype was located in. The results show that the design strategies are reasonably applied in Nature Between to achieve the goal of zero energy consumption in Dezhou and Xiamen. Pleasant indoor environment and flexible spaces are achieved in the house using natural material, which embodies the concepts of sustainability and natural philosophy. The practical strategies provided in this paper could help the architecture designs for residential NZEH.

This paper aims to present a comparative study into the cascade and series configurations of the organic Rankine cycle based small-scale solar combined cooling, heating and power system for civil application. The energy performance of the systems is studied by developing a thermodynamic model. The simulation model is validated using the literature results. Analyses of the research results indicated that the cascade system can achieve maximum value of the primary energy efficiency of 13.4% for cooling and power generation under solar collecting temperature of 115 °C in cooling mode. The cascade system has more cooling output and less electricity output in cooling mode compared with the series system. In heating mode, the single solar organic Rankine cycle (ORC) operation can achieve highest primary energy efficiency of 19.6% for heating and power generation under solar collecting temperature of 100 °C. Systems with R141b as ORC working fluid show better performance than those with R123 and R1233zd(E).

Well-designed urban public spaces often attract residents and play a critical role in improving people’s wellbeing. Many studies have examined the importance of one or a few environmental features in urban public spaces, such as the size of the space, greenery coverage, seating arrangements, recreational facilities, etc. However, there is a lack of systematic understanding regarding (1) which environmental features have a significant impact on the usage of urban public spaces and (2) how these features influence people’s environmental preferences. To answer these questions, this investigation adopts a two-fold analytical structure: (1) first, an expert inquiry was conducted to evaluate the environmental features, and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to determine the weight of each influencing factor; then, (2) on-site measurements were conducted across 104 spaces, accompanied by structured interviews with users of the spaces, based on which a decision tree analysis was employed to elucidate the decision-making processes of residents regarding their outdoor activities. The main findings of this investigation are as follows: (1) the site size, internal pedestrian flow, sky view factor, green-vision rate, and seat–circumference ratio are primary indicators affecting outdoor space usage, which are used in the objective evaluation index; (2) advantage value intervals for the sky view factor, green-vision rate, and seat–circumference ratio variables were calculated, and these three factors were found to significantly outweigh site size and internal pedestrian flow in terms of their effect on spatial preference. The interaction between the green-vision rate and seat–circumference ratio can affect the environmental preferences of residents: spaces with more seats exhibit lower requirements for greenery, while spaces with fewer seats should prioritise trees and greenery. Based on this study, an index based on influencing factors is proposed, enabling a better understanding of the environmental features affecting the usage of space. This study also provides valuable insights for future neighbourhood design through investigating the environmental preferences of residents, as well as the importance of various spatial features and their associated advantage value intervals.