Up to the end of 2008 I had published 22 papers in Iraqi and international journals as well as a few conferences. If you are interested in research collaboration visit my 2collab website at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sahar_Kharrufa/?ev=prf_highl . You will find the address of some of the published papers there as well. I am also compiling the abstracts. You can find a link to them bellow under "Abstracts".
My main areas of interest are as follows:
- Architectural Design: Papers on spatial allocation and later on about Beauty in Architecture. Attempted to find a way to calculate by computer an aesthetic value for design. Conclusion after one paper and two MSc theses, that beauty is an amoebic entity that changes too frequently to evaluate on a computed basis.
- Computers in Architecture. Worked considerably in this area in the 80's and 90’s and actually wrote three computer aided design programs for different purposes and platforms. One was for research purposes and the resultant paper was published in the “CAD” Journal then published by Butterworth's. Now belongs to "Science Direct". Paper may be found on their internet site. Used to program in six languages then.I changed course later to develop an open database that could describe a building's structure and content comprehensively in a manner that would make it suitable for export to structural and environmental programs. Similar in many ways to what Autodesk Architectural Desktop Currently does.
- Sustainability and Environmental Design. Reducing cooling loads in hot climates and waste from the building process. Latest work entirely on this subject.
Present Work
I am working on insulation solutions for existing building. The work is being done under contract for Dubai Municipality. It includes a survey of existing buildings in the city, a survey of current insulation material, suggestion to insulate existing buildings, and a feasibility study of the latter.
Brief of latest work
Between 2002 and until mid 2006 I conducted a series of tests with financial aid from the Ministry of Higher Education in Baghdad. The purpose of the tests was to see if a series of new and old cooling methods would succeed in reducing the cooling load in summer for Iraqi buildings. The most promising of these involved new systems that cool the shell of a building by evaporative cooling. The final results were encouraging.
At the present time the following work has been completed:
- Use of basement and earth contact buildings. Published in “JAABE”.
- Roof pond cooling. Published in “Building and Environment”.
- Evaporative cooling of roof compartment. Accepted for publication in an edited book by Nova Publishers to be released in 2009.
- Cooling of roof compartment and walls with evaporative coolers.Roof pond and evaporative cooling of wall. Presently being prepared for publication.
- Conceptual design of environmental house. The design is based on the implementation of the above research work. Published in the "Iraqi Journal of Architecture" in Arabic in Baghdad.
The latest work, numbered 5 in the above list showed that an 80% reduction in cooling load could be achieved. Since then I have also finished another paper describing the design of a house which uses these methods.