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The corner space, an important area of underground commercial streets, not only converts space functions but also exerts a great impact on the space atmosphere by transforming the environmental quality of the commercial street space. Based on corner space investigations of several underground commercial streets in China, this paper constructs a realistic scene model using virtual reality technology and screens. This paper classifies the corner space elements of underground commercial streets through preliminary experiments. Based on the conclusions, different morphological models of the corner space were constructed by orthogonal experiments and virtual reality technology combined with psychology. A semantic differential was used to quantitatively evaluate and analyze the spatial experience cognition of the subjects. This enabled an analysis of the of underground commercial street corners’ relationship to the component elements and the visitors’ psychological perception of their spatial form.

In the background of rapid urban development in China, several detached houses have been built. The style, local surroundings, and other physical characteristics of these houses are constantly changing, which provides ample samples for the study of the visual preference evaluation of Chinese detached houses. With the detached houses in Jiangsu province, China, as the research object, the architectural style, height-width ratio, window-wall ratio, and local surroundings were set as the physical characteristics of detached houses. A photo stimulation experiment was conducted with different types of participants, the findings of which were then collected and analyzed. The study indicates that architectural style, height-width ratio, window-wall ratio, and local surroundings are the main factors that influence people’s visual preference evaluation of detached houses; people of different categories produce different visual preference evaluations of detached houses. This study offers a valuable reference for the design of Chinese detached houses.

Building skin can provide comprehensive functions of energy production, daylighting, and shading with an integrated transmissive solar-concentrating panel. In this study, Rhino Grasshopper parametric modeling, Ladybug tool performance simulation, and Octopus multiobjective optimization platforms are used to carry out experimental research. This study establishes the optimal relationship between the conflicting objectives of light environment creation and energy production efficiency of solar-concentrating skin by controlling three variables, namely the size of the solar-concentrating module, the rotation angle, and the number of modules, aiming to design the optimal solution and build a multiobjective optimization technology framework for the solar-concentrating skin of an office space. A comparison and analysis of the scenarios indicate a dynamic concentrating skin that can effectively reduce the daylight glare probability (DGP) by 70% and increase the useful daylight illuminance (UDI) by 10%, while achieving energy production. The correlation between the variables and the performance indices of the solar-concentrating skin was obtained as angle > width > length > amount, and the optimal design interval for each parameter variable. This study reveals the laws of how parameter changes affect individual indicators, which can provide ideas for the design of dynamic concentrating skins and building integration, methods for improving the balanced design of indoor light environments and building capacity, and a technical framework for multiobjective optimization processes.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of courtyard envelope design on the energy performance of office buildings in the hot summer–cold winter region of China. Two types of courtyard buildings were simulated with 200 energy models by changing the following variables: window–wall ratio (south, north, east, and west walls), window U-value, wall U-value, solar heat gain coefficient, and orientation. The treed Gaussian process (TGP) sensitivity analysis method was employed to quantify the contributions of parameters related to courtyard design that result in the changes of annual cooling, heating, lighting, and total energy consumption. The results show that the courtyard envelope design has a significant effect on the energy consumption in this case study. The most influential factor affecting annual cooling energy consumption and the annual total energy consumption is the orientation, which is responsible for 37% and 81%, respectively, in two layouts to annual cooling energy use. The corresponding proportion increased to 45% and 86% in terms of the total energy consumption. The most influential factor influencing annual heating energy use is the window U-value, which explained nearly 60% of the changes to the heating energy use. The effect of the solar heat gain coefficient in two kinds of layouts is as high as 82% and 79% for lighting energy use in this case study. Due to the different courtyard forms, the magnitude of the effect of the parameters on energy consumption and the main trend of the effect is slightly different.