The computer model SIN-BIP is built as a combined model that can calculate energy consumption, price and environmental load for a building to get an energy efficient building. The program has a database with information of price, thermal conductivity, moisture conductivity, energy content and CO2-emission for materials. On the basis of this information can the program calculate for each construction, the U-value, the moisture resistance (and if there is condensation), the price, the energy used for producing the material and the environmental load from CO2-emission at the production.
The large number of innovative energy concepts which have been elaborated today to the stage of practicability open up new opportunities for contemporary architectural design. Energy concepts which pursue the aim of making optimum use of every available energy potential make the building itself an essential component of the basic energy logistics.
Sunlight from above can enliven a house dramatically. Designers, builders and homeowners who understand the energy aspects of skylights can best select them for comfort as well as appearance.
When an underground parking place is not ventilated frequently enough, it is natural that the concentration of contaminated air cannot be lowered to less than the safety limit. Further, when the supply or exhaust air is not of laminar flow, the contaminated air concentration will increase locally due to stagnation of contaminated air or due to vorticies generated in that place, even with a sufficient number of times of ventilation per unit time.
Parking garages require ventilation because the exhaust fumes produced by the vehicles have to be discharged. This can be achieved with a mechanical or a natural ventilation system. A natural ventilation system has several important advantages compared with a mechanical system. As a rule natural ventilation systems arc simpler, cheaper and have fewer breakdowns, furthermore a natural system requires less maintenance and uses no energy (for air transfer).
One of the most important projects of the 1990s has just been completed - the naturally ventilated School of Engineering at De Montfort University in Leicester. Roderic Bunn reveals how it could influence a new breed of environmentally sensitive buildings.
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