Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Most of the heat gain and loss occur through the building facade as it separates outdoor from indoor condition. Adapting with nature is one of the sustainable and effective strategies in order to reduce building energy consumption. As the sun angle changes over time and differs in various latitudes, designing an interactive building facade, capable of adapting itself with outdoor condition, will improve the efficiency of indoor condition and save a significant amount of energy. Identifying the trade-off between heating and cooling loads and lighting energy use is always challenging especially for the buildings with small facades such as tiny houses. In this study, an interactive building facade was designed for tiny houses in order to adapt with the sun angle. A simulation-based optimization method was applied to achieve the goal. In this process, an optimization code was developed in Microsoft Visual Studio and coupled with EnergyPlus (i.e., energy simulation) software to identify the trade-off between Energy loads of a tiny house. The interactive facade using movable Photo Voltaic (PV) panels was designed in DesignBuilder software (i.e., a graphical interface for EnergyPlus software) to identify the optimum position of movable panels. Finally, the amount of energy saved was calculated and compared with the baseline model to show the efficiency of the proposed interactive facade.