Windows in buildings serve vital functions like ventilation, daylight, views, and a connection to the outdoors. These features enhance occupant health and well-being by alleviating monotony, claustrophobia, and stress while offering restorative benefits, particularly through views of natural environments. Despite these benefits, windows can also create privacy challenges, as visual intrusion can compromise a sense of security. To mitigate this and manage visual comfort issues associated with direct sunlight, buildings often integrate movable shading devices, which can partially or completely obstruct views and access to daylight. This study examines how space function (Hotel Room vs. Waiting Room), view type (Forest vs. Urban), and shading conditions affect perceptions of privacy, view access, and satisfaction. An online survey of 150 participants used computer-generated panoramic images of four shading conditions: Base (no blinds), 25% Occlusion, Sky Open, and Ground Open. Participants rated privacy, view access, and satisfaction on a 5-point Likert scale.

Findings revealed shading condition as the strongest factor. The Base condition maximized view access but offered the least privacy, while 25% Occlusion balanced privacy and view satisfaction. Space function also influenced perceptions, with Waiting Rooms rated higher for privacy and view access compared to Hotel Rooms. Forest views were consistently rated more private and satisfying than Urban views, which elicited more variable responses. These results emphasize the nuanced relationship between privacy and views in shading design. Tailoring shading strategies to spatial and environmental contexts is essential for optimizing occupant well-being. The findings provide actionable insights for architects and designers. Future research should explore real-world applications, dynamic shading systems, and the integration of daylighting and thermal comfort considerations to refine shading strategies further.

The building sector is a key contributor to carbon emissions and resource consumption. Net zero energy, carbon neutral buildings are one of the essential roadmaps to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Zero energy architecture design is important in contemporary educational needs. In addition, project-based learning is an active method of learning that integrates practical problem solving. Zero energy architecture education using project-based learning helps develop critical thinking skills, improve confidence, and bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world practice.

This research assesses the benefits of project-based learning in assisting architecture students in the development of skills and knowledge for net zero energy building design. The study analyzes survey data collected from a group of architecture students from a technology course in relation to their skills in formulating zero design strategies and energy simulations, real-world performance validation, and the role of hands-on experiments as a skill-building activity. With an average rating of 3.75 for the net zero energy design strategies rating, the results suggest participants expressed high confidence in the zero-design strategy area. In contrast, the proficiency in running energy simulations was rated lower, than an average score of 2.81. Participants expressed clear understanding of the importance of real-world performance validation, scoring an average of 3.88. Participants also highly rated the effectiveness of project-based learning with an average score of 3.94.

Based on participant comments, the use of bioclimatic solar strategies and BIPV integrations was identified highly beneficial. The absence of adequate simulation training tools and challenges in practical implementation highlight the need for curriculum changes. This research confirms the usefulness of project-based learning for developing sustainable architecture education in a wider sense, as well as the skills of future architects to respond to climate change using zero design approaches.

Achievable and sustained net-positive energy production is an emerging societal and architectural challenge for existing buildings in the United States. This paper addresses the opportunities for transforming existing U.S. commercial buildings to achieve their own net-positive electrical energy production and the opportunity to architecturally integrate this production with a building, site and people. Employing a mixed-methodology of literature review and building studies, the paper examines energy issues at three scales: electricity demand and existing building energy retrofit at a national scale, photovoltaic potential and contributions at a regional scale, and photovoltaic energy systems at a local scale of individual existing buildings. A resulting research design project is presented that integrates large photovoltaic arrays with five existing commercial buildings and makes an argument for architects to implement an expression of energy for existing buildings that is profoundly physical, experiential and comprehensible to society. The project is justified as a both a poetic and practical response to the rapidly increasing societal demand for electrical power in the United States. This photovoltaic transformation will allow millions of existing commercial buildings to produce the energy they consume and to reveal this process to people through direct architectural engagement. The project acts as a design demonstration model with principles and a process that are repeatable for potential future applications throughout the United States adjusted to local climate, context, and opportunity.