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The evolution of the ever-changing neuroplastic human brain is inseparably linked to its environment. While early humans evolved in response to nature’s complexity and unpredictability, over millennia, the housing trajectory has increasingly prioritized sedentary behaviors, predictability, and comfort at the expense of cognitive stimulation. Modern life stress, mental health issues, and cognitive decline are markers of a poor environment. The pandemic lockdown has implicitly exposed that we need better houses for our brains. This paper goes back in time, navigating the cross-cultural evolution of environmental complexity to escape the contemporary dead end for the human brain that needs to evolve further. The paper advocates for a paradigm shift in housing design, emphasizing the need to foster neuroplasticity rather than constrain it. By reconceptualizing houses as architects of our brains, architecture becomes an independent variable embedding what the brain needs rather than embodying what the brain wants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ESTOA: Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca is the property of ESTOA Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the planning process behind the construction of a mosque building in the English city of York, to demonstrate how it is entangled with contested ideas of national identity. We argue that the politics of religious architecture, particularly mosque planning and architecture, serve as a litmus test for the ways multiculturalism is experienced in contemporary Britain. We explore objections during the planning process for this mosque alongside letters to a local newspaper, where objections included the effect of the mosque on urban infrastructure, the symbolic identity of the mosque within the wider city, and how the mosque would affect claims to citizenship more widely. Objections to this mosque application indicate that architecture and the urban environment are core elements of national identity, and it is through the planning process (of religious buildings) that claims about 'who is a citizen' are articulated. Democratic planning processes around the construction of individual buildings can allow groups to organise resistance to much wider cultures of multiculturalism and act as platforms for Islamophobic sentiments. We argue that planning processes work as discursive registers through which architectural aesthetics, cultural identities and fears of otherness are wrapped into the wider politics of public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing monuments and heritage could inspire the principles of Islamic aesthetics in architecture. We cannot simply copy the same ancient buildings; rather, we should apply the same principles. Western architects always find ways to design Islamic architecture and present its aesthetics. This study offers an overview of Islamic aesthetics in architecture as interpreted by Fernand Pouillon (FP). This study explores the architect through his thoughts, concepts, philosophy, social studies, construction materials, morphology, and selected case studies in the south of Algeria. The methods used for data collection include analyzing the architect's writings and architectural designs using standardized thematic axes. This proposal aims to provide a comprehensive qualitative and analytical study of a pioneering Western architect influenced by Islamic architecture who worked in Algeria during the 20th decade, specifically focusing on his work in the south of Algeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a foreword for a special issue of Cognitive Semiotics dedicated to the memory of Göran Sonesson, a prominent researcher in semiotics and cognitive semiotics. The issue includes a diverse range of contributions from various authors who have collaborated with Sonesson or worked with him for many years. The articles cover topics such as the phenomenology of meaning, the role of mimesis in human cognition, the semiotics of mirror images, and the importance of developing a more stereoscopic semiotics. The contributors also explore subjects like cultural semiotics, visual thinking in design, and the concept of semiotic development in child development. The article acknowledges the reviewers who helped make the issue possible and concludes by noting that Sonesson's influence will continue to be seen in future publications. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the book "Politics and the Arts in Lisbon and Rome: The Roman Dream of John V of Portugal" edited by Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira. The book explores the reign of John V of Portugal and his relationship with Rome and eighteenth-century culture. It examines how John V's admiration for Italian arts influenced his efforts to transform Lisbon into a new Rome. The book challenges previous interpretations of John V's reign and offers new insights into this period of Portuguese history. [Extracted from the article]

In this text, the author analyzes the convergence between Christian culture and relevant films of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense filmography. Rather than focusing on Hitchcock's status as a Catholic director, he makes an empirical analysis that allows him to find certain visual analogies between the Christian imaginary and the frames of certain films of the master of suspense. This article understands cinema as a kind of mental, psychological, or spiritual cartography/geography, and this is how it connects to the theme of space, where cinema is not just as analogous to physical space but the experience of viewing as a space. The Christian iconography of death, understood as participation in an eternal time, helps to understand the projection of the concept of suspension of judgment in constructing suspense that is not only iconographic but also spatially ontological. The author also suggests an epistemological connection between the mysterious nature of space in medieval art and architecture and the aesthetics of perfect crime in films. The allegory of Christ's Passion will be seen as a recurring thread in Hitchcock's visual analogies. His cinema and his particular way of seeing reality through space continue to demonstrate the validity of his art in writing new episodes in Western culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little empirical data in the published literature on occupant thermal comfort in buildings from the Modern Movement in architecture. We present a field survey of occupant thermal comfort and indoor environmental conditions in Mies van der Rohe's modern S. R. Crown Hall (1956) on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. Surveys were deployed to 557 student participants on four separate days, including two days in the cooling season and two days in the heating season, to assess their perceptions of thermal comfort throughout the space. Indoor air temperature, relative humidity and mean radiant temperature were measured concurrently in several locations throughout the space. Occupants reported high levels of dissatisfaction with comfort in the space (percent dissatisfied ranging 37%–54%), with somewhat counterintuitive results for this building type. Overcooling was apparent during warm weather and a combination of both over- and under-heating occurred during cold weather, contrary to what was expected in this building with a high thermal transmittance enclosure. There was also high spatial variability in comfort responses and measured indoor environmental conditions. Findings highlight the need to develop contextual approaches to meeting occupant comfort needs in this building while preserving architectural aesthetics/intent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the way a new specifically Georgian post-Stalinist art form (cheduroba , metal engraving) that emerged in the 1960s became a commonly encountered emblematic feature of the equally new urban spaces of the rapidly changing modernist Tbilisi cityscape. This new, and yet seemingly old, art form, which frequently featured the face of a traditional Georgian girl, usually a Khevsur girl from the mountains, came to be a diagnostic part of the modern urban assemblage of Tbilisi in the 1960s. This traditional face from the Georgian past became a paradoxical figure for the alliance of art and architecture in the visual aesthetics of the modern Georgian city in the 1960s, and the art form became the stereotypical "face" of a specifically Georgian post-Stalinist "traditional-modernist" public urban art. This art form soon became diagnostic of modern Georgian urban spaces, like the Tbilisi metro, which also opened around the same time in the 1960s. The recurrent distribution of this face across newly-created modernist urban spaces together formed a Georgian version of "socialist modernism," producing a visually-experienced "brand of socialism" for urban spaces, a procession of images traditional or national (in style or theme) in socialist modernist spaces connecting the traditional architecture of the city to the modernist architectural spaces of the new socialist city of the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research has investigated the sustainability and climate resilience of courtyard houses of adobe architecture in the UAE. It analyzed design effectiveness in terms of power consumption, CO2 emissions, thermal comfort, and daylight use, employing simulations to assess building structures and construction systems. Adopting a three-phase mixed-methods approach, the study began with a literature review on courtyard house design, construction, and environmental performance, emphasizing sustainable design and passive ventilation. The second phase involved a case study of a UAE courtyard house (Al Midfa), including site visits, interviews, and energy consumption and CO2 emission data collection. The final phase used building energy simulation software to model energy performance and evaluate passive ventilation's role in reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with simulation results validated against real-world data. Advanced Sefaira simulations with the Energy Plus Engine identified one out of seven modified models (M5) as exceptionally thermally efficient, influencing the architectural design of the Al Midfa house. To transform the Al Midfa house into a sustainable climate-resistant structure, the research suggested retrofitting with new glazing and insulation on the inside of external walls and on the roof surface at a combined U-value of 0.4 W/m2 to enhance energy efficiency without altering the exterior. A notable innovation was the use of injected cellulose insulation in wall systems, combining efficient insulation with architectural aesthetics, signifying a shift towards energy-efficient interior modifications. The study's findings contribute to the evolution of traditional house designs toward climate change resilience and a sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the rationality and coordination of landscape design for elevated railway stations, the aesthetics of architectural form and a deep analysis was conducted by using the methods of summarization and project analysis.(1) Station selection: The visual impact of the station and its section on the urban landscape should be fully considered.(2) Regional cultural artistry: The uniqueness of regional culture should be highlighted and closely integrated with the nature of transportation architecture.(3) Station lightweighting: The actual volume of the station should be minimized to achieve visual lightness and flexibility.(4) Reflecting the attributes of transportation architecture: While coordinating with the surrounding environment, the station should also have recognizable characteristics of transportation architecture. Finally, the research results were applied to the landscape design of the elevated railway stations of Wuhu Line 1 and Line 2 Phase 1. The design concept of "consistent segment, customized line color" was adopted by incorporating elements of Wuhu's regional culture into the station landscape, echoing the city's historical and cultural heritage. The station volume was controlled in terms of length, width, and height to achieve lightweighting and reduce the station's scale. Architectural forms, colors, and materials were kept simple, eliminating unnecessary decorations while meeting the functional requirements of the station. The optimized combination of functional spaces in the station provides maximum convenience for operation and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Potestas: Estudios del Mundo Clásico e Historia del Arte is the property of Potestas Estudios del Mundo Clasico e Historia del Arte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the context of architecture,"postmodernism"and"deconstructivism"are often considered to be the opposites of "modernism"and"structuralism", while French architect Jean Nouvel is usually put in the latter frames. In fact, however, Nouvel's architectural aesthetics shows a strong postmodern and deconstructive tendency in the philosophical sense, especially reflected in the prominent"ambiguity"and avoidance of style and form in his works. This article analyzes the deconstructive tendency reflected in Nouvel's architectural aesthetics from several perspectives, including the characteristics of decentralization, the overlap of reality and illusion, the dissolution of traditional architectural concepts and the style and form that are difficult to classify, as well as how his contextualism fits into this postmodern deconstruction, and try to clarify some long-standing misunderstandings about deconstruction/deconstructivism due to the misleading Chinese translation, so as to gain some new insights of architectural designing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the continuity of character in the preservation of architectural heritage, this approach focuses on the horizontal self-similarity characteristics of architectural texture. A method using K-means and the Bhattacharyya approach for color selection in architectural repairs is proposed. It quantifies the visual coherence between the repaired structure and the original structure. Analyzing 12 images (A–L), with the original façade (image 0) as a reference, demonstrates that repairs using color-matched materials significantly improve visual coherence. Image A, created using the Visual Enhancement Through Adaptive Repair (VETAR) method, achieves the highest visual alignment with the original image. VETAR, grounded in Gestalt psychology, moves away from traditional materials to concentrate on visual consistency. Its successful implementation in the restoration of Mengzhong Fort illustrates a complex approach to material use in heritage conservation. After comparison, this method is deemed superior to traditional techniques, integrating modern interventions with historical aesthetics. The study suggests that VETAR may offer a referential method for architectural conservation, potentially facilitating a balanced integration of historical and contemporary elements in architectural renovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architectural aesthetics improve the appearance and value of a building/construction structure based on shape, color, rigidity, etc., appealingly. It includes the maximum safety requirements, durability, structural ability, etc. Therefore the aesthetic implementation requires high-level data accumulation and analysis to satisfy the earlier constraints. This article develops a Selective Aesthetic Application Paradigm (SAAP) for meeting the user criteria in structural design for region-specific adaptability. The proposed paradigm gathers information on the region, people's expectations, visibility, and structural performance for the aesthetic design application. The proportion considerations in the application are subject to vary according to the region's adaptability and performance. The proportion of the accumulated data influence in the application is determined using deep learning. In the learning paradigm, two-layered configurations for region-adaptability and performance measures are trained to provide aesthetic design application recommendations. Based on the suggestion and recommendation, the deep learning module is trained to rectify design errors. The training is independent of the previous two error and adaptability verification layers. It is performed using the qualified (selected) aesthetic design with a previous history of user satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Architectus is the property of Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroclawskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the development of rural settlements, the loss of distinctive rural characteristics, caused by the contradiction between urban expansion and the ideal of pastoralism, has attracted widespread attention from researchers worldwide. To effectively understand the development and trends of the Research of Features and Characteristics of Rural Settlements (abbreviated as RFCRS), this paper uses the knowledge mapping software CiteSpace to conduct co-citation analysis, research collaboration analysis, keyword clustering, and keyword co-occurrence. The study analyzes the basic concepts, the literature distribution characteristics, research clusters, key issues, and development trends of RFCRS. The research found that the current key issues in RFCRS include "Eco-logical services and environmental protection of rural settlements", "Sustainable planning and architectural design issues of rural settlements", and "Human settlement environment and service facility construction of rural settlements". This paper predicts that future RFCRS research trends will focus on the study of landscape features and characteristics based on ecology, climate, and aesthetics; study of architectural features and characteristics based on characteristic factors and hierarchical structure; and research on rural revitalization based on sustainable development principles. The paper also offers four priority research suggestions for researchers from different disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of DEPARCH Journal of Design Planning & Aesthetics Research is the property of DEPARCH Journal of Design Planning & Aesthetics Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the visual landscape and soundscape factors of the public spaces in old residential areas and their attention restoration benefits for residents and to determine the main influencing factors. In this paper, the public spaces of six typical old residential areas in Tianjin were selected as the research object, and the restorative benefits of the respondents were analyzed through virtual reality environment, subjective evaluation, and attention testing methods. The results showed that the attention restoration benefits of the central square in the old residential area were better than those of the public space along the street. Second, greenery satisfaction, environmental cleanliness, architectural aesthetics, sky visibility, and soundscape evaluation are all significantly positively correlated with the attention restoration level. Finally, a "visual landscape and soundscape perception evaluation--attention restoration level" structural equation model was constructed. According to the model, both the visual landscape factors and soundscape evaluation factors in old residential areas had a direct positive impact on the attention restoration level, with a greater impact exerted by visual landscape factors than by soundscape evaluation factors. The findings from this study can provide significant information for the renewal of old residential areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the challenge of creating landscape art in context of environmental crisis, questioning whether artists can produce drawings or paintings that capture both nature's beauty and its vulnerability. Topics include the limitations of traditional linear perspective in representing the dynamism and multisensory experiences of landscapes.

The complications and sequelae of COVID-19 have jeopardized the well-being of residents, hindering community sustainability. Experiencing positive emotions can mitigate or counteract the negative effects of some diseases, but modern residential facades cannot effectively stimulate positive emotions among residents. Traditional culture influences people's emotional responses. However, it is unclear what the result would be if traditional architectural patterns, one of the symbols of traditional culture, were redecorated as modern residential facades. Therefore, this paper used questionnaire research to collect data from residents of the Zhouxinyuan community in Wuxi on different types of traditional architectural patterns in assessing architectural aesthetics (N = 365) and health benefits (N = 154), using the Wilcoxon signed rank test to analyze the data for variance. The results indicate that modern residential facades decorated with traditional architectural patterns were more consistent with residents' visual preferences and more likely to stimulate positive emotions than existing residential facades. Most importantly, modern residential facades decorated with traditional architectural patterns showed higher health benefits, especially in calming emotions (mean = 5, SD = 1.033). Based on these findings and the theory of positive experience, this paper constructs a conceptual framework for modern community public space renovation that contributes to improving the health benefits of modern communities. The framework can mitigate or counteract the complications or sequelae of the pandemic, contributing to the sustainable development of modern community public space environmental systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the design of funeral architecture with ecological aesthetics as the entry point, and makes a poetic interpretation of the gardening techniques and spiritual connotation of Tomba Brion Family Cemetery, a funeral architecture, in combination with architecture, ecological design aesthetics, landscape ecology, oriental aesthetics and other disciplines to explore the unique charm of the architectural field related to death for life, trying to provide the reference value of ecological aesthetics for the development of funeral architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Constelaciones (2340-177X) is the property of Fundacion Universitaria San Pablo - CEU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bylye Gody is the property of Cherkas Global University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses the functional, compositional and aesthetic role of urban canopies in the residential areas of Arab cities. Residential areas are understood across three problem scales: those of the district, the plot and the residential building itself. The objective of this study was to identify traditional and contemporary solutions in terms of spatial, functional and formal urban courtyard and canopy design. The study included an analysis of selected cases of various types of architectural and urban solutions present in residential areas with a focus on their accessibility, form of use, and architectural forms, as divided into traditional and contemporary solutions. The analyses resulted in recommendations for contemporary interpretations of urban canopies with the intent to preserve the value of local construction tradition, as well as modern needs linked to the necessity of implementing pro-environmental solutions on the architectural and urban scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Housing Environment / Środowisko Mieszkaniowe is the property of Chair of Housing Environment, Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Copyright of Journal of Nabo is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Learning is nothing but remembering. The ruin is the veiled memory of the past reality, its essence. Buildings tend to lose their shape due to ongoing wear as textures finishes lead to a new plastic expression, in an uncontrolled and random process that introduces new esthetic vision and interpretation. All the unfinished or incomplete stimulates our imagination mentally insinuating the presence of the fragmented object in its origin. This paper takes the form of a dissertation on the concept of "ruin" and its evolution in the Western thinking, being a reflection on the representation of the architectural remains of the past and their changes from an esthetic point of view: from their representation as a symbolic object, to their transformation as an element of scientific research; from the actual ruin to the invented one; from the harmony-creating ruin in nature to the one generating unease and distress.; from the ruin that shows us the capacity for analysis and study, to the current one, which faces us to our own capacity for destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surplus of matter in form designates the principles of architecture. It contains not only a constructive principle, but also an aesthetic principle that enables sensuous experience. In the coupling of construction and sensuous expe)rience, we find the basic prerequisites for an aesthetics of architecture, but also the philosophical-aesthetic difficulties confronting architecture. For Kant, it was architecture’s object character that stood in the way of an architectural aesthetics as part of a general aesthetics. For him, only the architectural drawing, because detached from matter, construction, and function, could meet the criteria of the beautiful, and that only as a façade view and not as a ground plan or sectional drawing. With reference to Aristotle, Kant and Schopenhauer and an outlook on contemporary architecture, the essay outlines the principles of an aesthetics of architecture as it is to be developed out of the specific material conditions of architecture and which has its starting point in the surplus of form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Contemporary Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia: A Historical Perspective" reflects on the concepts of utopia and dystopia from a historical perspective. It emphasizes the importance of studying these concepts in a holistic and open manner, considering various perspectives. It is mentioned that utopia has been a driving force for historical change, although it has lost presence in recent decades. Additionally, it is mentioned that both utopia and dystopia are counter-images of the present in which they are inscribed, and they are used as tools to think about alternatives and distance oneself from the existing world. The article presents studies on the utopian and dystopian phenomenon in contemporary history, including specific works on utopia in Brazil and communes in Spain, as well as the evolution of architectural aesthetics and dystopian discourse in cinema. It invites further exploration into the study of utopia as a vehicle for transformative human desire. [Extracted from the article]

Dams in the Swiss Alps are at once engineering marvels, dramatic man-made artefacts, crucial nodes in far-reaching infrastructural systems, and destructive interventions in alpine ecosystems. The essay explores the contradictory nature of dams in the Swiss Alps through the author's photographs and the experience of the infrastructural sublime. By focusing on the coming together of rockface and cast concrete shell within the images, the dams appear as distinct naturecultures interwoven with the flows and forces of the alpine landscape. Using the sublime as a lens to describe the aesthetic experience, the essay proposes the possibility of gaining environmental consciousness and humility of the vast impact of dams, through the encounter of the infrastructural sublime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the early 1970s, concern about the rise and prominence of large conglomerate corporations had fully saturated economic discourse in the United States. As products of a brief yet powerful merger mania during the 1960s, large industrial organizations began to restructure the economy by aggressively merging with and acquiring firms in disparate industries and geographies in order to obtain what business executives referred to as 'geopolitical' power. With hundreds of diverse subsidiaries, many of these military-sponsored conglomerates -- from Union Carbide to Litton Industries to Teledyne -- demanded new laboratories and office buildings that seemed to defy modernist tendencies of material standardization, reproducibility, and homogeneity, since the rates and directions of their future growth were indeterminable. The buildings produced for conglomerates between the 1960s and 1980s have been described by urban geographers and historians as the aesthetic and material epitomes of postmodernism, since they were often designed with highly reflective, hermetic surfaces that protruded, curved, and folded -- simultaneously revealing and concealing the late capitalist logics that undergirded them. This article considers how conglomeration was viewed as a geopolitical act that challenges existing histories and theories of postmodernism, which reduce the aesthetic conditions of these buildings to abstract representations of late capitalist economics. Instead, the article draws on the laboratories designed by architects César Pelli and Anthony Lumsden for conglomerates during the late 1960s in order to reveal how these aesthetic conditions were responses to the particular geopolitical practices and structures of conglomerate business, including the imperialist acts of 'acquiring' people, land, and other businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Double skin façades (DSFs), offer great views, architectural aesthetics, and energy savings. Yet, in a fire event the glass façade breaks leading to risks to human life and firefighting difficulties. Shading devices incorporated to prevent unfavourable heat gains to reduce cooling load though offer energy savings potentially present other challenges in firefighting and occupants' evacuation. In this study, Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) was used to numerically investigate the spread of a 5 MW HRR polyurethane GM27 fire in a multi-storey double skin façade building with Venetian blinds placed in its cavity. The blinds were positioned 0.4 m away from the internal glazing, middle of the cavity and 0.4 m away from the external glazing respectively. In each blind position the slat angle was opened at 0°, 45°, 90° and 135° respectively. The results show peak inner glazing surface temperature ranged between 283°C to 840°C depending on the thermocouple position, the Venetian blind position and slat opening angle. Without Venetian blinds, peak inner glazing surface temperatures ranged between 468°C to 614°C. In all cases except when the slat angle was 0° and the blind was positioned closer to the outer glazing, the inner glazing surface temperature from the closest thermocouple (TC 14) above the fire room exceeded 600°C, the glass breakage temperature threshold. Overall, the Venetian blind position and slat opening angle influenced the spread of fire. Venetian blind combustibility and flammability were not considered and therefore recommended for future studies. Practical Application: Our manuscript helps to develop new thinking on mitigation of fire risks in buildings for architects, engineers and designers when incorporating Venetian blinds in Double Skin Façades (DSFs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Al-Academy is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)