Saudi Arabia’s energy consumption is increasing astronomically. Saudi Building Code prescribes a fixed base temperature of 18.3℃ to estimate the heating degree-days and cooling degree-days. Using historical meteorological data (2005–2014), this article presents the heating degree-days and cooling degree-days estimated for the representative cities in all the five inhabited climatic zones of Saudi Arabia. We used the base temperatures of 14℃, 16℃ and 18℃ for heating degree-days, and 18℃, 20℃, 22℃, 24℃ and 28℃ for cooling degree-days for Dhahran, Guriat, Jeddah, Khamis Mushait and Riyadh cities. We developed multiple regression models for heating degree-days and cooling degree-days at various base temperatures for these zones. Degree-days for other cities in similar climates with limited input data can be computed with these. Lowering of base temperature by 2 K from 18℃ reduced the heating degree-days by 33–65%. At 14℃ of base temperature, the heating requirement reduced by 60–95%. Elevating the base temperature by 2 K from 18℃ lowered the cooling degree-days by 16–38%. At 28℃ of base temperature cooling can be completely eliminated in Khamis Mushait, and reduced by 65–92% in other cities. This observation merits rethinking about use of appropriate base temperatures that properly link the outdoor environment to reduce the energy consumption.

Highlights

We developed an adaptive model for the GCC.

In a yearlong thermal comfort survey in Qatari offices 1174 subjects gave 3742 responses.

Indoor comfort and outdoor running mean temperatures related adaptively.

Mean Griffiths comfort temperature was 24 °C. It varied seasonally and with indoor temperature.

In 80% offices the air speed was under 0.05 m/s, with great scope for enhancement.

An adaptive algorithm for indoor temperatures may be mandatory to achieve Vision 2030 goals.

Qatar tops the world in per capita CO₂ emissions and per capita total primary energy supply. Adaptive comfort standards and thermal comfort field survey data are not available for Qatar. We conducted a thermal comfort survey in Doha, Qatar, for five summer months in 2016. In nine typical randomly selected air-conditioned office buildings, 828 subjects returned 1926 questionnaires. We found 24.1 °C as Griffiths comfort temperature. Subjects mostly felt cooler sensation (mean: −0.23). Fanger’s Predicted Mean Vote always overestimated the actual sensation. We recorded very low to near still air conditions in all the indoors (mean speed: 0.04 m/s.) While 39.1% occupants felt neutral, 72.1% voted in the central band of the sensation scale and 85% accepted the environments. The occupants adapted through clothing. Clothing insulation significantly varied with air temperature. Public buildings are significantly cooler than the private buildings, and yet are less acceptable throughout the survey.

Won the Best Paper Award from “Building and Environment,” best in discipline journal.

2017 EAR_ Indraganti_EBL workshop in ME AR approach

The senior year design students and I were dismayed when my linear teaching and their habitual rote learning failed in a Middle Eastern University. The gulf between the curricular objectives and our teaching-learning methods intrigued me. I turned this into an action research project that sought to answer the questions, ‘What paradigm shift might we need to migrate from traditional rote learning to deep learning? What attitudinal change and philosophical beliefs would that call for in an instructor?’ The search for a solution metamorphosed me from a disengaged instructor into an empathizing reflecting practitioner. It led my students to active engagement in an enquiry-based learning workshop, which significantly improved their performance. This paper celebrates the journey of our collective deep learning. It explicates how I built my personal theory of teaching praxis through critical consciousness and meta reflection. This knowledge-creation process is empowering and may draw many teacher researchers towards meta-reflexive engagement with the social systems around. These change drivers can initiate institutional overhaul to effect systemic reforms.

Conducted ASHRAE class II Protocol based thermal comfort field survey studies in 10 different buildings in 5 neighboring locations experiencing two different climatic region, i.e. Hot and humid climate and Cold climate.

•

Clothing Insulation was significantly higher in cold climatic region than in hot and humid region.

•

Comfort temperature in cold climatic region was significantly lower than that in hot and humid region.

•

Variation of proportion of use of fans is provided by a logistic regression equation.

•

Variation of proportion of wearing of warm clothing is provided by a logistic regression equation.

This research focuses on determining thermal comfort and analysing adaptive opportunities in Japanese office buildings under various operation modes including free running (FR) mode. There are very limited studies on office buildings linking occupant’s adaptive actions and various modes of operation, compared to studies on houses and air-conditioned buildings in Japan. Large data on Japanese lifestyle, socio-cultural setup and climate are required in order to construct the adaptive model that can be used for the design of indoor thermal environments of Japanese offices.

We conducted questionnaire based field surveys to record thermal comfort responses of occupants and measured environmental variables simultaneously, in all the seasons in Tokyo and Kanagawa, Japan. The comfort temperature is evaluated with

(Standard effective temperature) in order to incorporate the effect of humidity and air velocity on thermal comfort. Nonlinear regression analysis is used to analyse the lower and upper limit of the optimum comfort temperature. Authors also examine adaptive models that can be used to design indoor thermal environment of Japanese office buildings under different operation modes. The limit of the optimum comfort temperature is shown at very low and high outdoor air temperature. The lower and upper limits of the optimum comfort temperature is approximately 23.5 °C and 26.6 °C in mixed-mode. In addition, it is seen that the optimum comfort temperature tends to increase and decrease at very low and high outdoor air temperatures respectively. We find behavioural adaptation related to clothing and window-opening leading to variation in the comfort temperature across different seasons.