United Arab Emirates | EPFL Graph Search

The United Arab Emirates (UAE; الإمارات العربية المتحدة al-ʾImārāt al-ʿArabiyya l-Muttaḥida), or simply the Emirates (الإمارات al-ʾImārāt), is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East. It is located at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula and shares borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia, while also having maritime borders in the Persian Gulf with Qatar and Iran. Abu Dhabi is the nation's capital, while Dubai, the most populated city, is an international hub. The United Arab Emirates is an elective monarchy formed from a federation of seven emirates, consisting of Abu Dhabi (the capital), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a ruler and together the rulers form the Federal Supreme Council. The members of the Federal Supreme Council elect a president (as of 14 May 2023, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan) and vice president (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan) from among their member

NOMAD - Network of Optimization Modalities in Architectural Design

Marilyne Andersen, Dan-Alexis Bolomey, Loïc Vivien Fumeaux, Boris Karamata

Two pairs of identical experimentation modules are being developed within the framework of a collaborative initiative named NOMAD – Network of Optimization Modalities in Architectural Design - between the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Performance-Integrated Design (LIPID) and the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST), both at EPFL. NOMAD relates to a series of projects related to the optimization of the building envelope in a sustainability context. Based on comparative evaluations in two climates (cool-temperate versus hot-arid), these projects will most notably rely on a dual infrastructure: the NOMAD modules. These modules will be located in Lausanne, Switzerland and in the Middle East (Ras-Al-Kaimah, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). They are currently in design development and will be operational in the fall of 2012 for the launching of the Master in Energy Management and Sustainability Caravans. One pair of modules will be located on the main EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland and the other pair will be installed on the site of the EPFL Middle East campus in Ras-Al-Kaimah, U.A.E. The modules’ dimensions will be 3 m wide x 3 m high x 9 m deep so as to allow deep plan layouts, and include an active insulation skin for temperature and heat exchange control. Having the modules in pairs offers the option either rely on a reliable reference case in any measurement campaign, to hide the measurement setup from the users in field studies, or to conduct two experiments simultaneously to get most out of periods where optimal climate conditions are scarce. This dual climate approach allows us to open up an innovative and original research framework, able to generate new façade concepts with high environmental standards, and to develop bio-climatic strategies based on multiple criteria. This unique dual research facility will thus be particularly adapted to investigate climate-related issues in building technology and to enhance the educational potential in sustainable architecture at EPFL and EPFL Middle East.

2011

Bioclimatic Design of Sustainable Campuses using Advanced Optimisation Methods

Silvia Coccolo

Cities occupy 0.5% of the earth surface, but they consume 75% of worldwide energy, and they are responsible of 50% to 80% of CO2 emissions. Cities are directly responsible for the climate change. However, they are the key for providing solutions to this problem. More specifically, a city comprises a very large number of microclimates, according to their urban and environmental design. A sustainable and liveable urban planning could well improve the urban environmental conditions by mitigating the energy fluxes of the city. The objective of this thesis is to address the energy fluxes within the urban environment, in time and space. The study focuses on the improvement of the energy demand of buildings as well as the outdoor human comfort. To do so, we try to establish a new bridge between the biometeorology and the architecture and to find a simplified approach to bring this research into practice. More specifically, the human comfort is well addressed in the research domain but, due to its complexity, it is quite difficult to use it in the real practice. In order to overcome this problem, we introduce three new modules in the software CitySim Pro. CitySim is an urban energy modelling tool which is able to quantify, dynamically, the energy demand from a building scale to the city scale. A first module, developed in this doctoral thesis, focuses on the quantification of the outdoor human comfort by the Index of Thermal Stress (ITS) and the COMFA* budget. The second module aims to understand the radiative environment by the calculation of the Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT). The third module focuses on the cooling potential of the vegetation and evaluates the shadings and the evapotranspiration provided by greenings. Based on the modules, Comfort Maps are designed, representing an important instrument to bring the research into practice: these maps are proposed as an effective way to share information between architects and municipalities, providing indications on the urban microclimatic conditions. Finally, the developed modules are used to optimize, using the hybrid CMA-ES/HDE evolutionary algorithm, the energy demand and the outdoor human comfort of two campuses: EPFL campus in Lausanne (Switzerland), and the Swiss International School (SISD) campus in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). On site monitoring, realized in the SISD campus, underlined the impact of the built environment, as well as the shadowing strategies, by punctual monitoring in five locations of the campus. The results show that i) we should not limit an architectural design to a single building, but it is important to think and design at the district/ city scale. There is ii) a strong relationship between the energy demand of buildings and the outdoor human comfort, consequently both of them should be jointly addressed by architects and urban planners, focusing on the building and the "space between buildings" design. Finally, iii) a sound urban design should derive from the bioclimatology, transforming the climatic adversities into design opportunities. Finally, a list of practical recommendations is defined, providing a support for a sound architectural design in time, and space.

EPFL2017

Bioclimatic Design of Sustainable Campuses using Advanced Optimisation Methods

Silvia Coccolo

EPFL2017

NOMAD - Network of Optimization Modalities in Architectural Design

Marilyne Andersen, Dan-Alexis Bolomey, Loïc Vivien Fumeaux, Boris Karamata

2011