To keep people comfortable you’ll need to use the right combination of passive and active design strategies. High-performance buildings use the right blend of passive and active design strategies to minimize energy, materials, water, and land use.
Passive design strategies use ambient energy sources instead of purchased energy like electricity or natural gas. These strategies include daylighting, natural ventilation, and solar energy.
Active design strategies use purchased energy to keep the building comfortable. These strategies include forced-air HVAC systems, heat pumps, radiant panels or chilled beams, and electric lights.
Hybrid systems use some mechanical energy to enhance the use of ambient energy sources. These strategies include heat recovery ventilation, economizer ventilation, solar thermal systems, radiant facades and even ground source heat pumps might be included in this category.
In general, you’ll want to optimize your design for passive strategies first. Doing so can often downsize the active systems you’ll need to install.
Consider the analogy of a sailboat, which uses natural forces to propel a boat through water. Similarly, you can ‘sail’ your building and keep its occupants comfortable by using passive design strategies for heating, cooling and ventilation.
Understanding how to design for human comfortwill help you pick the right passive design strategies.
