A Study on Architectural Design Factors for Tall Office Buildings with Regional Climates based on Sustainability

  • Cho, Jong Soo (Graduate School of Architecture, Konkuk University)
  • Received : 2004.03.27
  • Published : 2005.12.30

Abstract

Throughout history, buildings have been interrelated with certain indigenous characteristics such as regional climate, culture and religions. In particular, the control of regional climate has been primarily a concern for compatibility with nature. In our modern age, technologies to control climate have been successfully developed in architecture but the consumption of large quantities of natural resources can also produce environmental problems. This study is based on the proposition that this negative trend can be minimized with architectural design that is motivated to coexist with a regional climate. This study develops these design strategies for tall office buildings by analyzing various combinations of building design configurations based on regional climates. The objective is to determine the optimum architecture of tall office buildings during the initial design process that will reduce energy consumption for regional climatic conditions. The eQUEST energy simulating program based on DOE-2.2 was used for this comparative analysis study of the energy use in tall office buildings based on architectural design variables and different regional climates. The results are statistically analyzed and presented in functional architectural design decision-making tables and charts. As a result of the comparison of architectural design consideration for tall office buildings in relation to regional climates, buildings physically need less energy consumption when the architecture is concerned with the regional climate and it produces a more reasonable design methodology. In reality, imbalanced planning which is architectural design's lack of regional characteristics requires additional natural resources to maintain desired comfortable indoor conditions. Therefore, the application of integrated architectural design with regional nature should be the first architectural design stage and this research produces the rational. This architectural design language approach must be a starting point to sustaining long-term planning.

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References

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