ASSIGNMENT/COURSEWORK PROFORMA

Module Assessment title: Module leader:

code: Energy and Environmental Design Project Prof Hussam Jouhara
Assignment set by
This is an individual assignment
ME5513 Prof Maria Kolokotroni
Main objectives of the assessment are:
1. To introduce students to the techniques of gathering information from a number of sources.
2. To give students experience of sorting, analysing and presenting published information in a
meaningful way for a hiring client.
3. To source information on current principles and tools for the design of buildings considering
energy use and environmental impact as well as interactions with building services.
4. To introduce students to the factors influencing the internal environment of buildings
and methods for evaluating the energy consumption involved and the resulting
environmental conditions.
Brief Description of the assessment:
You are hired by a client who intends to build a small (500m2 floor area) Headquarters building for
his thriving business. The building (to house the administration part of the business) is to
incorporate the newest design trends on environmental impact on buildings, net and nearly zero
energy principles and occupants’ satisfaction in terms of comfort (thermal, visual, acoustics) and
indoor air quality.
You can choose the location of where this building would be. It could be in the country you are
based (for Distance Learning students) or it could be in a location you are familiar with. It could be
within a city or rural area. The location and its climatic conditions will have an influence on the
selection of the case-study for Part A.
The focus of this assignment is on energy use and environmental conditions provided for the users
(NOT the design of services).
You are asked to carry out the following three tasks.
Part A
Case-study to demonstrate design strategies for low-carbon and zero-energy office buildings. You
should carry out a literature search of recent published examples of built small office buildings
which have incorporated energy efficient strategies. You should select one of them which would be
most useful to your client for his project and describe what are the elements that he could
incorporate in the proposed building and why.
Part B
Additionally, the client has posed two questions to you to help him with the decision on how to (1)
develop the design brief and (2) access the subjective (by the occupants) performance of the
building after it is occupied:
1. What modelling tools for energy and environmental assessment of buildings should be used
for the design of the building?

2. What post occupancy evaluation (POE) tools can he use to access the subjective
performance of the building? (you should carry out a literature review of POE
questionnaires and propose a suitable questionnaire that can be used for his building after
construction and occupation).

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Part C
Thermal comfort and indoor air quality in the office is very important for the client and he would
like to understand how to provide best conditions for the users. He wants to see an example of an
environmental comfort analysis.
He has monitored data from his own office of air temperature, relative humidity and metabolic
carbon dioxide and he has provided these data to you. (You can download this file from
Brightspace - it is an excel file in the same folder you found this assignment brief). This excel file
includes air temperature, relative humidity and CO2 data recorded every 30mins for 9 months in the
client’s office. The office is located on the first floor in the corner of a three-storey building
constructed in 1970’s in the UK near Heathrow airport. It has a floor are of 15m 2, floor-to-ceiling
height 2.8m, exposed concrete on the ceiling, walls of painted brick and carpet on concrete floor.
There is no thermal insulation in the structure. The office is naturally ventilated and heated by
perimeter radiators. It has single-glazed windows covering 60% of the two external walls, facing
due east and due south. All windows have internal vertical blinds. The office has one occupant who
does not keep regular working hours; some meetings with up-to five people take place in the office
occasionally. Equipment includes one desk top computer. Lighting is provided three luminaires
each equipped with twin T5-35W tubes. Lighting control is automatic; daylighting linked and
presence control. You will need some external weather data to investigate the effect of external
conditions (see some hints on page 4 of this brief).
Your assignment for this question is to analyse the monitored data for this office to evaluate
whether thermal comfort and indoor air quality are likely to be provided for the occupant and
propose strategies to improve the conditions. Such strategies could include energy efficient
refurbishment of the office.

Learning outcomes for the assessment Assessment and marking criteria

(refer to the appropriate module
learning outcomes)
• Factors influencing the internal
environment of buildings
• Techniques employed in the design of
engineering services for buildings
• Methods employed in the planning,
resourcing and monitoring of
engineering projects
• Application of analytical techniques
to building services design and
management
• The ability to present results in a
structured written report
The students will be required to:
The marking criteria for the report are the following:
1. Executive summary to the client: 5%
2. Part A: Case-study: 30%
3. Part Ba: Modelling tools for energy and
environmental assessment of buildings: 15%
4. Part Bb: Subjective POE tools: 15%
5. Part C: Internal environment data analysis –
30%
6. Presentation style of the report (including
management of the assignment): 5%

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 Assessment method by which a student can demonstrate Weighting:
the learning outcomes: 35% of module

Assignment in the form of a report to a client One of three assignments for

ME5513 (30 credits)

Format of the assessment/coursework: (Guidelines on the expected format and length of

submission):

Report with a length of maximum 4000 words, 1.5 line spacing (approximately 15-16 single sided
A4 pages – to include everything such as diagrams, table of contents, reference list). Please ensure
you keep to these guidelines regarding the length of your submission. You are encouraged to make
use of tables and diagrams wherever practicable to enhance your response to the requirements of the
brief.

ASSESSMENT DATE(S)/SUBMISSION DEADLINE(S)

Deadline for submission is Thursday (15 Dec 2022) by 23:59. The assignment is to be submitted
electronically via Wiseflow by 23:59

Please note:
*Misconduct in assessment is taken very seriously by the University. You are expected
to abide by Senate Regulation 6 - Student Conduct (Academic and Non-Academic),
which can be found here:
https://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/administration/governance-and-university-
committees/senate-regulations

*Advice on understanding what plagiarism and collusion are and how they can be
avoided can be found here:
https://www.brunel.ac.uk/life/library/SubjectSupport/Plagiarism

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Additional information and hints
1. Databases with publications: You can access these through the Brunel e-journal database in
the library. Go to the Library from Brunel external website and follow instructions there until
you get access to e-journal database. You might have to login more than once but it should
work (I sometimes access them remotely and it works eventually). They should be available
freely so do not pay for any papers, just try again until you get them free). For
professional guidelines a very relevant resource is Construction Information Service (CIS)
Database.
2. Thermal comfort calculations. You need ambient weather data for some of the calculations.
A useful website, from where you can extract external weather data for specific days, is:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/. You do not need to do the comfort calculations for
the whole year; you can select representative weeks during the year.

3. Referencing: refer to the Brunel Library guidelines on the correct method of citing and listing
references. http://libguides.brunel.ac.uk/referencing/overview

4. Assignment Project management: Include a project time plan for the assignment; ie a bar
(Gantt) chart and/or a network diagram and discuss briefly the tasks. A project time plan
(which should be prepared in the beginning of the assignment) can help you identify the tasks
which may be tackled in parallel, which tasks need to be completed before moving to the next
stage and help you manage you time over the project duration.

5. Relevant resources provided by module materials:

a. Lecture notes in Brightspace,
b. Tymkow P, Tassou S, Kolokotroni M and Jouhara H, 2nd edition (2020). Building
Services Design for Energy Efficient Buildings, Routledge (Taylor & Francis). Most
relevant chapters to this assignment are chapters 1 to 5.