Analysis of the impact of sustainability related design parameters in the architectural design process: A case study research

Abstract

Literature review shows that early decisions in the architectural design process have the largest impact on the sustainability of the final design. However, in practice, many early decisions on sustainability are solely based on the experience and intuition of the designer. Especially in small projects, which lack engineering support due to limited budgets, designers often only use their own experience to incorporate sustainability in their design. Therefore, a research project has been established to develop a design support tool that provides designers with sustainability related feedback at every stage of the design process, based on the available information. In a first step of the research project, the design process is analyzed to identify the presence of sustainability related design parameters during each stage. The focus lies on residential buildings and on parameters related to indoor climate and energy use. The paper presents the results of several case studies in which architectural design projects in Flanders, Belgium, were investigated through an analysis of all design documents and an interview with the designer, based on an EPBD coupled framework of sustainability related design parameters. The data reveals that architects can be divided in two subgroups, according to the designing method. Another distinction was made, according to the way architects handle energy related design issues. Results show that parameters such as surface, orientation, volume, and organization are available very early in the design process, followed by glazing area, whereas for instance system components are only vaguely defined, even late in the process. These results are important information for the development of the design support tool, since these initial design decisions might already be sufficient for a first evaluation on e.g. the impact of glazing area on energy consumption or summer comfort.