Passive Design(Sustainable Design)
‘Passive design’ is design that takes consideration of the climate to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature & humidity range in the home.Passive design greatly reduces or eliminates the need for extra heating or cooling, which accounts for about 40% (or much more in some climates) of energy use in average home.
Prefabricated Building
A prefabricated building is a type of building that consists of several factory-built components or units that are assembled on-site to complete the unit.
By combining passive design and prefabricated building, it enables you to maximize your house investment and reach the best optimal thermal comfort.
The importance of passive design cannot be overstated. Paying attention to the principles of good passive design suitable for your climate effectively ‘locks in’ thermal comfort, low heating and cooling bills, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions for the life span of your home.
Passive design utilises natural sources of heating and cooling, such as the sun and cooling breezes. It is achieved by appropriately orientating your building on its site and carefully designing the building envelope (roof, walls, windows and floors of a home). Well-designed building envelopes minimise unwanted heat gain and loss.
Get started with each design stage
Concept design stage
Thermal simulation, involve a passive designer to perform a thermal simulation based on
- Local weather data
- Building concept model(revit or sketchup)
- Orientation
- Appliance
- Energy Performance requirement(User expectation, set proper target)
- Code requirement
Developed design stage
Once the thermal simulation is done, the passive designer will provide architect inputs for further design like
- Wall/roof/floor insulation requirement
- Windows U value and SHGC suggestion, airtight level
- Self Shading impact suggestion
- Ventilation
- Thermal mass impact
Taking above into developed design and also working with other engineers, they would form the final developed design documents ready for building permit.
Detailing design
Work closely with manufacturer and involve them as early as possible to avoid time & cost issue.