ENERGY PERFORMANCE: A COMPARISON OF FOUR DIFFERENT MULTI-RESIDENTIAL BUILDING DESIGNS AND FORMS IN THE EQUATORIAL REGION

Building sector has been identified as a major energy consumer with nearly half of the world’s energy used is associated with providing environmental conditioning in buildings. Approximately, two third of this is for heating, cooling and mechanical ventilation. Therefore, there is a need to optimize building design to be more responsive to surrounding environment which reduces energy utilisation. Energy consumption evaluation and audits for buildings is vital process that can contribute to energy conservation. As preliminary studies to this research, four low-rise residential college buildings with specific layout were selected in finding the relationship between passive building strategies and energy performance. The study initial approach was to critically analyse the design of the selected buildings through scaled drawings and site visits. Comparison of the two were carefully made to obtain current and post renovation conditions and surroundings as most of the drawings were drawn 30 to 40 years back. The elements of bioclimatic design were implemented as matrixes or criteria, particularly on natural ventilation and day lighting. Then, the energy performance was crucially audited to find out Building Energy Performance (BEP) acknowledged as energy use per unit floor area, and Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) to elaborate the kWh/m2/year of each residential college for five years duration. As initial findings, the implementations of appropriate bioclimatic design strategies are able to provide positive impacts to the overall energy performance of the residential colleges.