طراحی ساختمان با کربن پایین : چارچوبی برای کاهش مصرف انرژی و جاسازی استفاده از انرژیهای تجدید پذیر

EU policies to mitigate climate change set ambitious goals for energy and carbon reduction for the built environment. In order meet and even exceed the EU targets the UK Government's Climate Change Act 2008 sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. To support these targets the UK government also aims to ensure that 20% of the UK's electricity is supplied from renewable sources by 2020. This article presents a design framework and a set of integrated IT tools to enable an analysis of the energy performance of building designs, including consideration of active and passive renewable energy technologies, when the opportunity to substantially improve the whole life-cycle energy performance of those designs is still open. To ensure a good fit with current architectural practices the design framework is integrated with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) key stages, which is the most widely used framework for the delivery of construction projects. The main aims of this article are to illustrate the need for new approaches to support low carbon building design that can be integrated into current architectural practice, to present the design framework developed in this research and illustrate its application in a case study.

European policies to mitigate climate change set ambitious goals for energy and carbon reduction from the built environment (European Commission, 2008). In order meet and even exceed the EU targets UK Government's Climate Change Act 2008 sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 (Department of Energy, 2011). To support these targets the UK Government also aims to ensure that 20% of the UK's electricity supply is from renewable sources by 2020 (Department of Energy, 2011). Unsurprisingly given the ambitious goals for both carbon reduction and renewable energy generation the Government has introduced many different policies to support both an improvement in the quality of the UKs’ building stock and the use of renewable energy technologies. For example, part L of the Building Regulations, introduced in 2006, imposes new requirements aimed at improving the energy efficiency of the domestic and non domestic building stock. A renewable energy scheme to encourage homeowners to use active renewable energy technologies, such as solar panels, has also been established (Department of Trade & Industry, 2007). In addition a number of measures to encourage the use of renewable energy in the commercial sector, some punitive and some encouraging, have been initiated. For example, Enhanced Capital Allowances (ECAs) enable a business to claim 100% of first-year capital allowances on their spending on qualifying plant and machinery (Energy Capital Allowance, 2010). The recognition of the need for carbon reduction from the built environment, along with new EU directives, more stringent building regulations and general environmental concerns, is also encouraging the development and application of sustainable building codes. In the UK these include the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) and the Simplified Building Energy Model (SBEM), the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) and the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Model (BREEAM).

The recognition of the need for carbon reduction from the built environment, along with EU directives, more stringent building regulations and general environmental concerns has lead a number of researchers to develop general lifecycle design frameworks for buildings to support energy efficient building design. However as mentioned earlier, the approaches adopted often demand that architects and building contractors completely transform current building design practice. The approach adopted in the research presented here is somewhat different. This article has argued that there is a pressing need for the integration of the methods and tools to support sustainable design with architectural practice. The research presented provides practical guidance to design professional on how and when to use building energy simulation tools and sustainable building codes to support environmentally sound design practices within current business processes. This is achieved by integrating the framework with within the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) ‘Plan of Work Stages’ (RIBA, 2008) and identifying and filling some of the gaps in current tools. The inclusion of a Sustainable Design Optimisation Tool developed as part of this research simplifies the process of checking multiple design options for design compliance, as interviews and literature review indicated that if this process is too onerous it will be rejected by architectural professionals due to cost and time constraints. Incorporating a trade-off or optimisation function within the Sustainable Design Optimisation Tool reduces the level of expertise necessary to interpret the results of the energy simulations thus it reduces one of the major barriers to the use of energy simulations in the design of buildings, namely the level knowledge and expertise required for interpretation (Schlueter & Thesseling, 2008). It also means that the approach adopted is flexible enough to ensure that the clients’ specific requirements can be made into a fixed priority as is often necessary for any architectural design. The case study presented illustrates that current tools and methods can be integrated to support consideration of the energy performance of a building design when the opportunity to substantially improve the energy performance of that design is still open. However further research is required to support the use of these approaches by architectural professionals working in the construction industry. This could take the form of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships or integrated research projects which are conducted in conjunction with architectural and construction professionals. Ideally the next step in the research presented in this article is to run a live case study to see if the framework and tools are feasible within the real world.