How is passive building practice in urban design? – 1

Introduction

With the global energy crisis, the reduction of energy consumption has become an important issue around the world, and passive house design plays an important role in reducing energy consumption. In fact, passive house design has been widely used in the urban design field to a large extent, and even in some places it has been codified in the design codes. For example, the Hull Design Guide (Harper Perry, n.d.) provides urban designers with the opportunity to consider the façade of a building based on its design for passive architecture to create an especially urban skyline. At the same time, passive house design has been widely used to a large extent, and this approach is applicable to all building types, including very low-cost buildings, whether new or renovated, large or small (Bere, 2019). As emphasised by Wolfgang Feist, one of the founders of the Passivhaus concept, Passivhaus is a building concept that could be applied by anyone, anywhere, which includes “excellent insulation, prevention of thermal bridges, airtightness, insulated glazing and controlled ventilation”(Passive House Institute, 2024).

Why is it important?

In the field of urban design, the main advantage of passive houses lies in their excellent energy efficiency performance and the improvement of occupants’ comfort. As Roberto and Vallentin (2014) claim Passivhaus achieves a perfect combination of low energy consumption and high comfort through excellent thermal insulation, tight sealing of the building shell and efficient ventilation systems. At the same time, passive buildings use 75 % less energy for heating compared to conventional buildings and 90 % less compared to the average existing house (Fig.1).

Fig. 1 – Comparison of energy consumption between conventional and passive buildings, Passipedia, 2010.

Conclusion

Consequently, passive buildings could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption to a significant extent, contributing importantly to the development of sustainable urban development.

References

Fig. 1 – Comparison of energy consumption between conventional and passive buildings. Take from: What is a Passive House?. Passipedia (2010). Available at: https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house. (Accessed: 22 March 2024)

Bere, J. (2019), An Introduction to Passive House. RIBA Publishing. https://doi-org.libproxy.ncl.ac.uk/10.4324/9780429347696

Harper Perry, n.d., Hull Design Guide. Online. Available at: https://urbandesignworks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Hull-Resi-Design-SPD_Final-for-web-260dpi.pdf. (Accessed: 24 March 2024)

Passive House Institute (2024), The world’s first Passive House, Darmstadt-Kranichstein, Germany. Online. Available at: https://passipedia.org/examples/residential_buildings/multi-family_buildings/central_europe/the_world_s_first_passive_house_darmstadt-kranichstein_germany. (Accessed: 21 March 2024)

Roberto, G. and Vallentin, R. 2014, Passive House Design: A compendium for architects. München: DETAIL. Available at: https://doi.org/10.11129/detail.9783955532215. (Accessed: 21 March 2024)