The relationship between the shape of a building and its energy performance

Abstract

The article considers the effect of architectural volumetric design solutions on the demand for energy and material resources for a building. The method used in the research aims at determining the potential of measures reducing the energy losses of buildings without improving thermal properties of the external envelope elements or applying mechanical energy-saving devices. It has been found that buildings of similar areas but different external envelope areas have different demand for energy at their operation stage and different demand for building materials at the construction stage. It follows that the efforts aimed at determining the appropriate geometric properties of buildings and their effect on the demand for energy and material resources of a building, as well as possibilities to use them for maintaining this demand within reasonable limits, make sense. The size, compactness and geometric efficiency of a building as well as the criteria for their evaluation are considered while performing the comparative analysis of a building’s shapes. The method of determining rational values by finding their deviation from the best result is applied. The results obtained show that the geometry has the strongest effect on the demand for energy and material resources of the buildings, enclosing up to 3,000 m2 of the internal area, and that buildings with various proportions are found in the geometric efficiency range of 20%.