Development of a sustainable design guideline for a school building in the early design stage

Abstract

This study was designed to develop a design guideline that is to be used in the early stages of the design process of a school building. Although increased demand for sustainable buildings has driven many architects into sustainable design, non-conventional and sophisticated design steps associated with sustainable buildings preclude proper implementation of such design concept in practice. Appreciating the critical need of a systematic approach, this study is intended to document a design guideline for sustainable buildings. Based on a careful evaluation of available literature, energy strategies and performance levels that affect heating and cooling energy consumption were established for a reference baseline building. Computer simulations were performed using EnergyPlus to analyze the sensitivity of each of the energy strategies to overall performance. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also conducted to estimate the relative importance of each energy factor. The priority of each energy factor was then determined in relation to the design guideline.