Publications related to Domestic roof construction

Reusability Assessment of Obsolete Reinforced Concrete Structural Components

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Maléna Bastien Masse, Célia Marine Küpfer, Julie Rachel Devènes

The production of concrete, the most widely used construction material, detrimentally affects the environment. Obsolete reinforced concrete (RC) load-bearing structures, even when still in good condition, are today prematurely crushed and landfilled or rec ...

Springer2023

Robotic Assembly of Integrally-Attached Timber Plate Structures: From Computational Design to Automated Construction

Nicolas Henry Pierre Louis Rogeau

The digitization of timber construction, the emergence of engineered wood products, and the urgent need to drastically reduce buildings' environmental impact have given a rebirth to wood as a construction material. On the one hand, increasing the use of ti ...

EPFL2023

From Marshall Plan to “Hilton in the wild”: The Transnational History of a Cooperative Housing Block in Esat, Ankara

Sila Karatas

This paper concerns the planning, design, and construction history of a postwar multifamily housing block in Ankara, Turkey, viewed from the perspective of the transnational and local networks behind its realization. Built by the Mintrak Building Cooperati ...

2022

Seismic response of historical masonry buildings and aggregates - large-scale experimental testing and macro-element modelling

Igor Tomic

The seismic analysis of existing unreinforced masonry buildings is a challenging task, troubled by different sources of material and modelling uncertainties. The historical heritage value of a building can further complicate the assessment and design of re ...

EPFL2022

Measuring the effective thermal resistance of ventilated air-spaces behind common wall assemblies: Theoretical uncertainty analysis and recommendations for the hot box method modifications (ASHRAE 1759-RP)

Dolaana Khovalyg, Mohammad Rahiminejad

A well-designed ventilated wall that incorporates air-space behind cladding can reduce energy use for conditioning buildings by adding a thermally resistive layer. The scarcity of thermal performance data and standardized test methods is a particular barri ...

2022

Impact of the ventilated air-space behind traditional (passive) and BIPV (active) façades on the thermo-hydrodynamic performance of the building wall structures

Mohammad Rahiminejad

For many decades, ventilated cavities in wall assemblies of buildings have been essential for creating moisture-resilient constructions by allowing airflow within the air gap to promote drying. In addition to that, the airflow in the cavity can contribute ...

EPFL2022

Design of Integrally-Attached Timber Plate Structures

Yves Weinand

Design of Integrally-Attached Timber Plate Structures outlines a new design methodology for digitally fabricated spatial timber plate structures, presented with examples from recent construction projects. It proposes an innovative and sustainable design me ...

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London, 20222021

Seismic testing of adjacent interacting masonry structures

Katrin Beyer, Igor Tomic, Andrea Penna

In many historical centres in Europe, stone masonry buildings are part of building aggregates, which developed when the layout of the city or village was densified. In these aggregates, adjacent buildings share structural walls to support floors and roofs. ...

2021

Thermal resistance of ventilated air-spaces behind external claddings; definitions and challenges (ASHRAE 1759-RP)

Dolaana Khovalyg, Mohammad Rahiminejad

The presence of an air-space within a building envelope is known to have a varying contribution to the overall thermal performance of the wall assembly due to the combined effect of convection and radiation in the air cavity. In particular, the thermal res ...

2021

Upcycling Space Structures (Preface to special issue)

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Olivier Baverel

The construction industry’s contribution to the deterioration of Earth’s ecosystem is huge. 11% of all anthropic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are due to the construction, demolition, and transformation of buildings and infrastructure. Construction an ...

2021

Experimental investigations on the load-carrying capacity of digitally produced wood-wood connections

Yves Weinand, Julien Gamerro, Jean-François Bocquet

The rise of digital fabrication has increased the use of wood-wood connections inspired by traditional carpentry in modern timber constructions. With recent developments on standard construction systems, the mechanical behavior of such joints for in-plane ...

2020

Development of Novel Standardized Structural Timber Elements Using Wood-Wood Connections

Julien Gamerro

Traditional wood-wood connections, widely used in the past, have been progressively replaced by steel fasteners and bonding processes in modern timber constructions. However, the emergence of digital fabrication and innovative engineered timber products ha ...

EPFL2020

Modern timber design approaches for traditional Japanese architecture: analytical, experimental, and numerical approaches for the Nuki joint

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting

This work fully investigates a specific timber joinery connection via experimental, analytical, and numerical methods. The selected joint is the Nuki joint: a mortised column with through-beam tenon. The experimental approach takes advantage of digital fab ...

International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE)2019

Development of a Spring Model for the Structural Analysis of a Double-Layered Timber Plate Structure with Through-Tenon Joints

Yves Weinand, Anh Chi Nguyen

Timber plate structures with integral mechanical attachments have been successfully built in the last decades. Previous research has highlighted the influence of these connections in the global behavior of the structures. Double-layered plate shells are on ...

World Conference of Timber Engineering2018

A city-scale roof shape classification using machine learning for solar energy applications

Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Dan Assouline, Nahid Mohajeri Pour Rayeni, Bérénice Guiboud, Andreas Bill

Solar energy deployment through PV installations in urban areas depends strongly on the shape, size, and orientation of available roofs. Here we use a machine learning approach, Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification, to classify 10,085 building roofs ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2018

Experimental investigation of the influence of integral mechanical attachments on structural behaviour of timber folded surface structures

Yves Weinand, Christopher Werner Matthias Robeller, Andrea Stitic

Structural behaviour of timber folded surface systems greatly depends on the connections ability to transfer the occurring forces between the adjacent elements and finally to the supports. This paper focuses on multiple tab-and-slot joints (MTSJ), where di ...

2018

Assessing visibility in multi-scale urban planning: A contribution to a method enhancing social acceptability of solar energy in cities

Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Christian Roecker, Maria Cristina Munari Probst, Pietro Florio, Josef Andreas Schuler

Urban areas are facing a growing deployment of solar photovoltaic and thermal technologies on building envelopes, both on roofs and on façades. An effective solar energy planning process considers social acceptance, in relation to the landscape alteration ...

2018

Optimization Formulations for the Design of Low Embodied Energy Structures Made from Reused Elements

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Gennaro Senatore, Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting

The building sector is one of the major contributors to material resource consumption, greenhouse gas emission and waste production. Load-bearing systems have a particularly large environmental impact because of their material and energy intensive manufact ...

Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature2018

Characterization of Cold-Formed Steel Framed/Wood Sheathed Floor and Roof Diaphragm Structures

Dimitrios Lignos

The seismic in-plane response of cold-formed steel (CFS) framed diaphragm structures has not been the subject of extensive study. The information available specific to diaphragm design in the North American CFS design standard is based on limited experimen ...

International Association of Earthquake Engineering2017