A Design decision support system based on heuristic rules for energy efficient apartment complexes

Abstract

In accordance with the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emission, various regulations or policies have been enacted for energy reduction in building sectors. A building sector comprising more than 40 percent of total energy consumption in the world also takes large portion of total energy consumption occupies highest portion of total energy load in Korea. Therefore, the Korean government is being faced with the necessity of energy reduction in residential parts and expects to construct sustainable apartment complexes. To reduce building energy use, it is necessary to optimize building design for energy efficiency at the early design phase so as to have the greatest impact on a building’s thermal performance. Decisions made in the early design process, such as selection of a building’s architectural components, form, and orientation, can remarkably decrease or increase a building’s energy performance. Therefore, it is necessary to provide designers or architects with design decision support models to assist them with energy efficient design decisions in the early design phase. This research shows an exploration of heuristic rules for validating sustainable apartment design in Korea based on energy sensitivity and life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) promises to be an appropriate support solution for green apartment housing design decisions in the early design phase. To that end, this study focuses on identifying and analyzing the effects of various parameters having different characteristics in various combinations and input parameters on building energy consumption in order to build a database that will inform a set of heuristic rules for energy effective green home design considering a building’s life-cycle cost (LCC) to facilitate the design of sustainable apartment housing. This study could play a crucial role in providing valuable guidelines for developing energy and cost efficient residential housing in Korea by helping architects consider appropriate design ...