The Impact of Building Morphology on Energy Consumption

Abstract

This research uses Ådland project as a case study in order to investigates how the building morphology which is one aspect of the architectural quality will impact the heating demand of buildings. The research is based on the design which is ongoing in the Research Center on Zero Emission Buildings (ZEB).

There are mainly four parts in this research. In the first part, there is a literature study on energy-efficient building design. The second part describes the architectural design of Ådland project. In the third part, the methodology is explained, which uses ECOTECT as the simulation tool. At the end, the heating consumption of different building organizations are analysed.

The simulation results indicate that, with excption of Linear 1 organization and L-Shaped organizations, the heating demand differences of different building morphologies could almost be disregarded. The heating demand is not related to either the U-values of building components or different climates. However, the heating demand of the building is mainly related to the shape coefficient factor. In this context, the conclusion shows that both Linear 1 organization and L-Shaped organization are a preferable design solution for Ådland project.