Zero Pentathlon: a holistic environmental design assignment

Abstract

Inspired by, but also as a criticism on the Solar Decathlon, the Zero Pentathlon design assignment has been set up at our faculty. The lack of attention for passive design rules and renovation in the Solar Decathlon was one of the main catalysts to set up an environmentally improved design assignment. The assignment involves the redesigning of a single-family house into a near-zero impact multi-family house, taking into account 5 criteria (energy, water, materials, architecture, construction). The students have a computational design support tool at their disposal to evaluate the energy and summer comfort performance of the design from the early design stages on. Analysis of the final designs together with feedback sessions and surveys of the students shows that the computational tool is supportive during the design and helps to achieve the ambitious goals set. However, it also reveals that most students still lack fundamental understanding of the parameters influencing the performance indicators. Despite the feedback from the tool, they appear to struggle with deliberately using the architectural design parameters to approach the final goal of a zero energy house and many students mainly keep relying on the trial and error approach.