Passive design is the key to sustainable building. It responds to local climate and site conditions to maximise building users’ comfort and health while minimising energy use.
It achieves this by using free, renewable sources of energy such as sun and wind to provide household heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, thereby reducing or removing the need for mechanical heating or cooling. Using passive design can reduce temperature fluctuations, improve indoor air quality and make a home drier and more enjoyable to live in.
It can also reduce energy use and environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. For most parts of New Zealand, well integrated passive solar home design results in comfortable internal temperatures of between 18°C and 25°C with minimal (or no) costs year round.
Interest in passive design has grown, particularly in the last decade or so, as part of a movement towards more comfortable and resource-efficient buildings.
The key elements of passive design are building location and orientation on the site, building layout, window design, insulation (including window insulation), thermal mass, shading and ventilation. Each of these elements works with others to achieve comfortable temperatures and good indoor air quality.
All of these elements work alongside each other and therefore should be considered holistically. For example, large windows that admit high levels of natural light might also result in excessive heat gain, especially if they cast light on an area of thermal mass. Similarly, opening windows that provide ventilation will also let in noise.
It achieves this by using free, renewable sources of energy such as sun and wind to provide household heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, thereby reducing or removing the need for mechanical heating or cooling. Using passive design can reduce temperature fluctuations, improve indoor air quality and make a home drier and more enjoyable to live in.
It can also reduce energy use and environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. For most parts of New Zealand, well integrated passive solar home design results in comfortable internal temperatures of between 18°C and 25°C with minimal (or no) costs year round.
Interest in passive design has grown, particularly in the last decade or so, as part of a movement towards more comfortable and resource-efficient buildings.
The key elements of passive design are building location and orientation on the site, building layout, window design, insulation (including window insulation), thermal mass, shading and ventilation. Each of these elements works with others to achieve comfortable temperatures and good indoor air quality.
All of these elements work alongside each other and therefore should be considered holistically. For example, large windows that admit high levels of natural light might also result in excessive heat gain, especially if they cast light on an area of thermal mass. Similarly, opening windows that provide ventilation will also let in noise.
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Additional Resources for NZ
Eco home type building aims to exceed many of the minimum standards as set out in the current codes and standards (rules). If anything the pending changes would bring the minimum building standard closer to an eco home standard. And in time I think that it would make conventional build eco buildings more mainstream and easier to achieve. This would come about by greater awareness by people, and more manufacturers and suppliers of building products having to meet higher more environmentally friendly products.
I did see that better thermal performance is part of one change, and the government announced a Carbon Neutral Government programme which requires the public sector to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. One can expect (and hope) that this shift (mind set as well as physical things like buildings and infrastructure, and the rules around them) will have a flow on effect into the private sector and into the lives of the most New Zealanders.
Eco home type building aims to exceed many of the minimum standards as set out in the current codes and standards (rules). If anything the pending changes would bring the minimum building standard closer to an eco home standard. And in time I think that it would make conventional build eco buildings more mainstream and easier to achieve. This would come about by greater awareness by people, and more manufacturers and suppliers of building products having to meet higher more environmentally friendly products.
I did see that better thermal performance is part of one change, and the government announced a Carbon Neutral Government programme which requires the public sector to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. One can expect (and hope) that this shift (mind set as well as physical things like buildings and infrastructure, and the rules around them) will have a flow on effect into the private sector and into the lives of the most New Zealanders.
- The New Zealand Building code is the minimum legal standard to which you can build a house.
- NZ has some standard documents for Earth buildings (NZS 4297, NZS 4298, and NZS 4299)
- The NZ Government passed the Climate Change response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 in November 2019. This commits NZ to deliver a Zero-Carbon economy by 2050, so we can expect to see government led requirements for many NZ industries to up their game, including the NZ building industry which contributes to approx 20% of New Zealands greenhouse gas emissions.
- BRANZ (Building Research Association New Zealand) has some great resources and information in addition to the links provided in the course notes
- NZGBC (New Zealand Green building Council) are actively lobbying the government to increase the minimum standards set out in the building code, and educate the building industry to think more sustainably.
- NZGBC has been focusing on energy efficiency of buildings and new builds as these are the areas where most gains can be made. And energy efficiency equates to cheaper ongoing costs so is attractive to building owners and occupants. There are some interesting videos from past webinars that you can watch and links to register to upcoming ones as well https://www.nzgbc.org.nz/
- NZGBC also runs the Green Star (Commercial Buildings) and Home Star (Residential buildings) programs. Green Star is an internationally-recognised rating system for the design, construction and operation of buildings, fit-out and communities. https://www.nzgbc.org.nz/greenstar.
- Homestar is a rating tool for assessing the health, efficiency, and sustainability of homes https://www.nzgbc.org.nz/homestar
- These are assessment tools to use to assign a ‘rating’ to a building - there is cost to having a project assessed and rated. The resources and assessment criteria (if you have access to them) are useful when considering sustainable design (considers all facets of the building including location and proximity to local amenities as well as building materials, insulation and the like).
- The Superhome movement https://www.superhome.co.nz/ recently launched the Healthy Home Design Guide https://healthyhomedesignguide.co.nz/ as a holistic guide to more sustainable and healthy homes. The guide contains discussion on different materials and build techniques, it provides good, better and best practice, design solutions and compares them with the minimum standard as set out in the NZ Building Code
- The International Living Institute ‘Living Building Challenge’ https://living-future.org/ has a huge amount of information on their website and host transparency labeling systems, living building challenge, and a data base of red list free building products and materials (red list is material or ingredients of materials that are harmful to people and environment). The product labeling is good in that it encourages designers and architects to avoid specifying harmful materials and use natural materials etc. as an alternative, as well it gives suppliers incentive to reformulate products to reduce and eliminate these harmful materials.
- Stuff article titled Zero-carbon buildings not a pipe-dream; the changes are happening https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/123532021/zerocarbon-buildings-not-a-pipedream-the-changes-are-happening article focuses on commercial Architectural projects however some common threads and ideas for all building projects no matter what size or scale