Posts

Showing posts from 2012

My Kids and Their Past Memories...

Image
Photographs by Firrbudi aka Lensahijau @ United Kingdom, Amsterdam & Paris : 2012

The Gaza Strip & The Shameless Israeli : The Historic Wrong in Palestine

The state of  Israel  came into existence 60 years ago on 14 May 1948.  In the months before and after this declaration, around 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes.  Over 500 villages were emptied of their Palestinian population and most of them were destroyed so that those expelled had no homes to return to. Anybody who doubts that ethnic cleansing took place on this scale should read  The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine  by Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe.  In it, he describes Plan Dalet (D in Hebrew), which set out the areas to be cleansed and the methods to be employed by Zionist forces in carrying out the cleansing.  Here is a sample of the latter: “ These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those population centres which are difficult to control continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations accord

The Establishment of 'Air House' Standard in Tropical Countries : Final Part

Image
Conclusions and Recommendations Design Issues As a conclusion, there are some design issues discovered in traditional Malay houses and social housing (Table 42). According to research, materials that are used in Malay houses are more practical and reliable for releasing heat readily, compared to high thermal capacity materials such as bricks and concrete in social housing. These high thermal materials store heat and cause uncomfortably high temperatures at night. The unplanned kampong environment does not block the wind; thus the entire neighbourhood receives a good quality of fresh air. Externally, in modern housing large blocks and long terraces create barriers and air pockets, while internally, the complicated wall arrangements in modern housing block air movement, which leads to an uncomfortable thermal condition. In a traditional Malay house, full-length openings are located at body level, while in modern housing the openings are smaller and only concentrate on the

The Establishment of 'Air House' Standard in Tropical Countries : Part 8

Image
The Establishment of ‘Air House’ Standard in Malaysia From Passivhaus to ‘Air House’ In Europe, Passivhaus (Passive House) standard has been established to achieve the most suitable thermal comfort condition in a building during winter and summer. According to Audenaert, et al. (2008), ‘ passive house is a type of low-energy building; design is oriented to make maximum exploitation of passive technologies, assuring a comfortable indoor climate during summer and winter without needing any conventional heating or cooling system ’. The passive house concept focuses on airtight insulation that can prevent air infiltration and retain heat in the building. Its aim is to achieve 10 times less heat energy than the same standard designed building (Feist, et al., 2005). Table 33 shows the Passivhaus standard that has to be achieved in order to claim Passivhaus certification in the United Kingdom. Table 34 shows the common construction criteria for Passivhaus standard, which involves a