The course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation, human comfort, and the site-specific dynamics of climate. Students are expected to combine an understanding of the basic laws of comfort and heat flow with the variables of local climate, designing the most viable energy measures from siting, massing, organization, enclosure detailing, opening control, to system integration and management. To stress the significance of architectural design decision-making on energy consumption and comfort, full design specifications and hand calculations are completed for a residential scale building. An overview of world energy consumption in buildings and energy design standards is challenged by lectures of the state of the art in building energy conservation and passive heating and cooling technologies. The course ends with a focus on the design integration of natural conditioning systems and the potentially dynamic interface of mechanical systems in small and large-scale buildings.
