Evaluation of Building Forms: An analytical study on environmental impact and energy performance

Sammanfattning: The study consisted of an analysis of buildings with different forms, based on residential archetypes, and an assessment of their energy demand and environmental impact, for Swedish conditions. A Shoebox Study was performed, including seven building archetypes, developed by assembling basic units, shaped like a shoebox. A number of form-defining properties was selected based on the literature review, allowing to describe the form of buildings analysed in the study in a clear and consistent way. The energy performance was determined using Climate Studio plug-in in the Rhinoceros software. The environmental impact was assessed using One Click LCA, incorporated into the Revit environment. It was aimed to find a correlation between the building form, energy performance and environmental impact. The correlation was assessed while focusing on a realistic approach to the design of buildings with varying shapes but constant living floor area, referred to as residential space floor area, and when analysing an impact of the scale of buildings with a constant shape but varying living floor area. Subsequently, a Case Study was performed, where a form of a building used in a real-life project developed by Arkitema company, was assessed. The objective was to determine if a correlation between the building’s form, energy demand and environmental impact, established in the Shoebox Study, can allow to predict the performance of a building with a different form. The prediction was carried out by the means of mathematical proportion. Subsequently, simulations of the energy performance and environmental impact calculations were performed for the Case Study and the results compared with the predicted values to assess the accuracy of the prediction. Ultimately an assessment of the relationship between the building form, the energy demand and GWP was done for the Shoebox Study and Case Study together, in order to analyse the correlation in the context of a real-life building form. Two separate assessments were performed with the results expressed per m2 of the heated floor area and per m2 of the residential space floor area and the outcomes compared to illustrate the impact of the service spaces, included in the heated floor area, on the energy demand and global warming potential of considered buildings.