Insulating Modernism

Notes on Contributors

This research presents a case study of a single-family home in Georgia, United States, that achieves near net-zero energy costs for the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system with near-zero additional capital investment. Building information modeling (BIM), energy analysis, and practical common construction practices were integrated to trade-off between design and construction alternatives to achieve these results. An accelerated number of publications addressed net-zero energy buildings (NZEB). Much of this research addresses means and methods to make buildings produce as much energy as they consume (net-zero site or building energy) or make buildings produce energy and sell it to offset the buildings’ energy bills (net-zero cost). However, NZEBs still constitute a small fraction of the building industry, which is mainly due to higher initial costs, significant deviations from common construction practices, or altering common building operations and comfort levels. In this research, a practical approach for achieving NZEB was tested and used in constructing a single-family home. BIM software that generates annual energy consumption with every design alternative was used during the design and construction phases of this home. The BIM model was also used to generate building materials quantities to estimate the initial construction cost. In this case study, the initial construction cost of the selected design was less than that of comparable homes in the same area. The post-occupancy evaluation showed that the annual energy consumption related to heating and cooling was 72% less than that of comparable homes in the same area. Energy consumption related to hot water consumption was 21% less, and energy consumption for lighting was reduced by 22%. In conclusion, general design guidelines and lessons learned are established to help the residential building industry adopt energy-efficient design and construction approaches to reduce energy consumption in homes without increasing the listed prices of homes.

Previous articleNext article FreeNotes on ContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreHarold J. Cook is John F. Nickoll Professor of History at Brown University and was previously Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. Recipient of the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society and the Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, he is author of five books and coeditor of six others, together with well over sixty articles. His primary research interests are in the emergence of the new medicines and sciences of early modern Europe; global knowledge exchanges; the coproduction of science and commerce; and processes of translation.William Deringer is Leo Marx Career Development Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research excavates the history of economic and political knowledge practices. His first book, Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age (Cambridge, Mass., 2018), reconstructs how numerical calculation became an authoritative mode of public reasoning in Anglophone political culture. His new project, Discounting: A History of the Economic Future (in One Calculation), traces “present value” calculations from their early modern beginnings to contemporary debates about climate change.Julia Fein is a historian of Modern Russia, specializing in the intersecting histories of science and empire. She spent two years as a Mellon Postdoctoral Associate at Rutgers University, where she was affiliated with the “Networks of Exchange” seminar at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. She has also taught modern European history at Macalester College.Courtney Fullilove is Associate Professor of History, Environmental Studies, and Science in Society at Wesleyan University. She is the author of The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture (Chicago, 2017) and of articles on claims to natural and cultural heritage. She is currently writing a history of international biodiversity preservation.Arunabh Ghosh is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Harvard University. A historian of modern China, his interests include social and economic history, history of science and statecraft, and transnational history. His book, Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early PRC, 1949–1959, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Articles have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, BJHS-Themes, and the PRC History Review. He is currently working on two new projects: a history of Chinese dam building in the twentieth century and a history of China-India scientific networks, ca. 1900–1960.Martin Giraudeau is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Sciences Po, in Paris, and a researcher in the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He has published articles on the history of business plans, the invention of entrepreneurship, and the roles of accounting in organizations and society. He recently coedited, with Frédéric Graber, a volume on the modern history of projects: Les Projets: Une histoire politique (16e–21e siècles) (Paris, 2018).Eugenia Lean is Associate Professor of Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. She is the author of Public Passions: The Trial of Shi Jianqiao and the Rise of Popular Sympathy in Republican China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2007). Her forthcoming book, Manufacturing China’s Vernacular Industrialism: Nativist Tinkerer and Toothpowder Magnate, Chen Diexian (1879–1940), employs the figure of Chen Diexian, a professional editor, science enthusiast, and pharmaceutical industrialist, to examine the practices of nativist tinkering, innovative adaptation, and knowledge work in the building of early twentieth-century Chinese industry. Her latest research examines China’s involvement in shaping modern global regimes of intellectual property from the early twentieth to twenty-first centuries.Victoria Lee is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Ohio University, where she teaches and writes about modern science and technology. She is currently writing a book about Japanese society’s engagement with microbes in science, industry, and environmental management. She has published in Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences and Agriculture (ed. Denise Phillips and Sharon Kingsland), and Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.Paul Lucier is a historian of science, business, and the environment. He is the author of Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820–1890 (Baltimore, 2008) and is currently finishing a book on the geology of gold, silver, and copper mining in the American West. The goal of his research is to understand whether and how science-driven capitalism can be ethical, innovative, intellectually creative, and environmentally responsible.Sarah Milov is Assistant Professor in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Her first book, Smoke and Ashes: From Corporatism to Neoliberalism in Tobacco’s Twentieth Century, is forthcoming. Her recent research focuses on whistle-blowing, particularly the relationship among gender, credibility, and bureaucracy.Emily Pawley is Assistant Professor of History at Dickinson College, where she teaches environmental history, the history of capitalism, and the history of science. Her research focuses on cultivated landscapes as sources of knowledge; recent publications examine analytic tables and the invention of nutritional value, cattle portraiture and markets in blood, and varietal description and counterfeit fruit. Her book project, the Balance-Sheet of Nature: Agriculture and Speculative Science in the Antebellum North, examines the kinds of speculative and futuristic knowledge that emerged to make sense of the rapidly commercializing landscape of post–Erie Canal New York and is under advance contract at the University of Chicago Press. She is also interested in the transatlantic history of moon farming.Lukas Rieppel is David and Michelle Ebersman Assistant Professor of History at Brown University, where he teaches courses on the history of science and the history of capitalism. His forthcoming book, Assembling the Dinosaur, uses the history of paleontology as a means to examine how the ideals, norms, and practices of modern capitalism shaped the way scientific knowledge was made, certified, and distributed during North America’s Long Gilded Age. In addition, Rieppel has written several essays about the material culture of the earth sciences, the history of museums, the valuation of fossils, and the authentication of specimens.David Singerman is Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at the University of Virginia. His work has appeared in Radical History Review, the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and the Journal of British Studies. He has also written on the sugar industry for the New York Times and on U.S.-Canada trade wars for The Atlantic.Hallam Stevens is Associate Professor of History and Biology and the Head of History at the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). He is the author of Life Out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics (Chicago, 2013), Biotechnology and Society: An Introduction (Chicago, 2016), and the coeditor of Postgenomics: Perspectives on Biology after the Genome (Durham, N.C., 2015).Lee Vinsel is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, where he teaches and writes about government and technology. He is a cofounder of The Maintainers, a global, interdisciplinary research network that studies maintenance, repair, and mundane work with things. His forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press examines the history of automobile regulation in the United States from 1893 to today’s dreams of a driverless future. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Osiris Volume 33, Number 12018Science and Capitalism: Entangled Histories Published for the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/700195 © 2018 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

INTRODUCTION: With the increasing global awareness of sustainable development and environmental protection, green building has become one of the important development directions in the construction industry. The application of sustainable type energy in the construction industry is of great significance in reducing building energy consumption and environmental pollution. This study aims to explore the application of sustainable types of energy and conduct research on energy consumption optimization. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to analyze the current situation of the application of sustainable types of energy in the construction industry, to explore its impact on the energy consumption of buildings, and to propose corresponding optimization strategies in order to achieve the goal of sustainable development of green buildings in China. METHODS: This study adopts a combination of literature review and case study; firstly, a literature review on the application of sustainable types of energy, sorting out its technical characteristics and application effects; then, several typical cases are selected to analyze its energy application and energy consumption in buildings; finally, relevant strategies and suggestions for optimizing the energy consumption are put forward by combining the results of the literature review and the case study. RESULTS: Through the literature review and case analysis, it is found that sustainable types of energy, such as solar energy and wind energy, have been widely used in buildings and achieved certain energy-saving effects. However, there are also some problems, such as inefficient energy utilization and high cost. To address these problems, this study proposes a series of optimization strategies, including suggestions for optimizing energy system design, improving energy utilization efficiency, and reducing energy costs. CONCLUSION: This study concludes that the application of sustainable types of energy in green buildings is an important way to optimize building energy consumption and sustainable development. Through measures such as optimizing energy system design and improving energy utilization efficiency, building energy consumption can be further reduced, environmental pollution can be reduced, and the development of the construction industry can be promoted. However, further research and practice are still needed to continuously improve relevant technologies and policies to promote the application and development of sustainable types of energy in buildings.

Applications and Analysis of the Composite wall on Construction in Heilongjiang Province

Energy-use patterns in many of California's fastest-growing industries are not typical of the existing mix of industries in the US. Many California firms operate small- and medium-sized facilities housed in buildings used simultaneously or interchangeably over time for commercial (office, retail, warehouse) and industrial activities. In these industrial subsectors, the energy required for building services (providing occupant comfort and necessities like lighting, HVAC, office equipment, computers, etc.) may be at least as important as the more familiar process energy requirements -- especially for electricity and on-peak demand. Electricity for building services is sometimes priced as if it were base loaded like process uses; in reality this load varies significantly according to occupancy schedules and cooling and heating loads, much as in any commercial building. Using informal field surveys, simulation studies, and detailed analyses of existing data (including utility commercial/industrial audit files), we studied the energy use of this industrial subsector through a multi-step procedure: (1) characterizing non-process building energy and power use in California industries, (2) identifying conservation and load-shaping opportunities in industrial building services, and (3) investigating industrial buildings and system design methodologies. In an earlier report, we addressed these issues by performing an extensive survey of the existing publicly available data, characterizing and comparing the building energy use in this sector. In this report, we address the above objectives by examining and analyzing energy use in two industrial case-study facilities in California. Based on the information for the case studies, we discuss the design consideration for these industrial buildings, characterize their energy use, and review their conservation and load-shaping potentials. In addition, we identify and discuss some research ideas for further investigation.

Due to the high energy consumption characteristics of industrial warehouse buildings, the demand for energy regeneration technology is increasingly urgent. In recent years, with the rapid development of building energy technology, warehouse building energy regeneration technology has made remarkable progress in energy conservation and sustainable development. A deep understanding of the previous research progress and trends can provide the scientific basis for guiding subsequent in-depth research. Through the bibliometric analysis of 145 journal articles collected from the Web of Science (WoS) database between 2004 and 2024, this research has studied the research trends and progress on the application of energy regeneration in industrial warehouse buildings. This study first revealed the overall development trend of energy regeneration technology in warehouse buildings through quantitative analysis, indicating that related research is growing rapidly. Core scholars in the field such as Lund H. and Mathiesen B.V., as well as major journals such as Energy and Sustainability, have been identified through the analysis of the literature. Five core research themes, including energy efficiency improvement and regeneration technology, renewable energy system design, life cycle sustainable technology, renewable energy utility assessment, and policy support and energy consumption simulation, were identified through cluster analysis. Through evolutionary analysis, this study demonstrates the development process of energy regeneration in warehouse buildings and the critical role played by advances in new energy technologies in the field of warehouse construction. On this basis, this study proposes current key research directions, including energy life cycle assessment, energy regeneration environment optimization, and energy system management. The research on the energy regeneration of warehouse buildings has gradually become an important cross-subject of architecture and energy technology, providing technical support for the transformation of low-carbon storage buildings. The analysis of the current research status, evolutionary logic, and research trends can provide scientific references for further in-depth research and technological applications in this field.

The building sector is currently responsible of 40% of global final energy consumption, influencing the broader energy system in terms of new electricity and heat capacity additions, as well as distribution infrastructure reinforcement. Current building energy efficiency potential is largely untapped, especially at the local level where retrofit interventions are typically enforced, neglecting their potential synergies with the entire energy system. To improve the understanding of these potential interactions, this paper proposes a methodology that links dynamic building simulation and energy planning tools at the urban scale. At first, a detailed bottom-up analysis was conducted to estimate the current and post-retrofit energy demand of the building stock. The stock analysis is further linked to a broader energy system simulation model to understand the impact of building renovation on the whole urban energy system in terms of cost, greenhouse gas emission, and primary energy consumption up to 2050. The methodology is suited to analyze the relationship between building energy demand reduction potential and clean energy sources’ deployment to shift buildings away from fossil fuels, the key priority for decarbonizing buildings. The methodology was applied to the case study city of Torino, Italy, highlighting the critical role of coupling proper building retrofit intervention with district-level heat generation strategies, such as modern district heating able to exploit low-grade heat. Being able to simulate both demand and supply future alternatives, the methodology provides a robust reference for municipalities and energy suppliers aiming at promoting efficient energy policies and targeted investments.

This paper comprehensively examines passive and active energy retrofit strategies as a highly effective approach for reducing building energy consumption and mitigating CO2 emissions while enhancing comfort and sustainability. The paper further examines energy simulation software and assesses the integration of renewable energy systems in building to improve energy efficiency. The review used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology, ensuring a rigorous and comprehensive analysis. In addition, the study utilized bibliometric analysis with VOSviewer to provide valuable insights into the research trends and influential publications in building energy retrofits. Bibliometric analysis reveals strong collaboration among 17 authors, emphasizing their significant contributions. Keywords like energy retrofitting and efficiency are prominent, indicating their importance in academic literature. Findings show passive strategies are more effective in reducing energy consumption, though a combined approach with active strategies can yield optimal results. Retrofitting presents challenges, such as substantial initial costs and regulatory barriers. User acceptance is crucial, considering potential disruptions. The review highlights the importance of energy simulation software, with tools like EnergyPlus, eQUEST, and IES VE identified for evaluating and identifying cost-effective retrofit measures in building performance. By providing comprehensive insights into the various strategies and tools available for retrofitting buildings to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability goals, this review serves as an authoritative resource for building owners, managers, and professionals in the building industry. It offers invaluable guidance for informed decision-making and facilitates implementing effective, energy-efficient, and sustainable building retrofitting practices.

Today's building energy codes focus on prescriptive requirements for features of buildings that are directly controlled by design and construction teams and verifiable by municipal inspectors. Although these code requirements have had a significant impact, they fail to influence a large slice of the building energy use pie—including not only miscellaneous plug loads, cooking equipment, and commercial/industrial processes but the maintenance and optimization of the code-mandated systems as well. Currently, code compliance is verified only through the end of construction, and there are no limits or consequences for the actual energy used in a building after it is occupied. In the future, our suite of energy regulations will likely expand to include building efficiency, energy use, or carbon emission budgets over their full life cycle. Intelligent building systems, extensive renewable energy, and a transition from fossil fuel to electric heating systems will likely be required to meet ultralow-energy targets. This paper considers short and long-term trends in the building industry, lays out the authors' perspectives on how buildings may evolve over the course of the 21st century, and discusses the roles that codes and regulations will play in shaping those buildings of the future.

Optimizing the dimensional ratio and orientation of residential buildings in the humid temperate climate to reduce energy consumption (Case: Rasht Iran)

Urban microclimate and its impact on building performance: A case study of San Francisco

Industrial buildings account for a significant portion of global building energy consumption and carbon emissions. With the rapid growth of the manufacturing industry, a widely recognized opportunity to reduce energy consumption in industrial buildings is to improve the energy efficiency of HVAC systems in manufacturing factories. Due to the requirement of temperature control and humidity control (if any), one characteristic of HVAC system models for industrial buildings is the high requirement of computational efficiency in system modeling for real-time control applications. However, most of the existing MPC tools have been developed for small to medium-scale commercial, residential and office buildings, and the system models are usually fully-coupled, which has led to their limited progress in large-scale industrial buildings. This paper provides an overview of the LightMBC (Model-Based Control) web-based platform toolkit for optimal control of HVAC systems in industrial buildings to achieve energy savings, including a practical web-based graphical user interface. The strength of LightMBC lies in the fact that it is based on decoupled, step-wise Modelica-based models of the water-side system, distribution pipe network and demand-side systems (air-side systems and workshop), performs for-loop specified range traversal optimization to provide real-time optimal control parameter combinations of pumps and chillers. The technical details of the parametric modeling module, the model calibration module, and the control optimization module, as well as a case study developed in a real manufacturing factory are documented. The validation results showed that the proposed method could reduce energy consumption by 26.35% for pumps and 29.01% for chiller units during typical cooling seasons under the premise that the indoor temperature is controlled, demonstrating the significant potential of the proposed method for improving energy efficiency.

taken into consideration: mandatory use of solar energy in new state and federal buildings, and mandatory use of solar energy in new dwellings when technically feasible. To increase the effectiveness of the solar energy program nationally and to assure its rapid implementation, the following steps should be taken: faster development of new photovoltaic cell technologies, an acceleration of the demonstration program for small-scale solar thermal power and wind plants, an acceleration of the biomass program, more aggressive research on energy storage means, and an intensification of the program of synthetic fuels production. In addition, emphasis in the building industry on the advantage of passive solar systems and hybrid systems seems necessary in order to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to make a place for solar energy as one of the major energy sources it deserves to be.

Integrative economic framework incorporating the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) for U.S. Residential energy systems