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Design Criteria for Designing Sustainable Commercial Buildings in Hot
and Arid Climate
Hesham Helal, a, Rania F. Ismail2,b *
1Arch. Hesham Helal, CEO & Founder of Criteria Design Group, Egypt
2Rania Fouad Ismail, Assistant Professor at Matarya Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University,
Egypt
ah.helal@criteriadesigns.com, bdr.raniafouadismail@gmail.com*
Keywords: Commercial Building, Design Design cliteria, DesignBuilder, sustainable design,
Abstract
As climate change effect on our daily life is clear, and the awareness of greenhouse gases damages is
increased, architects and many developers necessitate green and sustainable buildings design by
focusing on energy efficiency, avoiding harmful materials, and taking care of indoor air quality to
construct environmentally friend buildings. Also, adopting energy efficiency strategies and renewable
energy applications in buildings design generally and particularly in commercial buildings will drop
the produced amount of CO2 emissions, as well as operational emissions and embodied emissions are
attributed to the building materials and energy required for construction.
This research is proposing energy efficient commercial building design proposal as an approach to
green architecture in Egypt. First, commercial buildings impact is studied, then choosing energy
simulation tool to assess the solution as DesignBuilder software, the design of commercial building
proposal respect the triple bottom line of sustainability, to introduce innovative, efficient and
environmental building design respecting users’ needs and achieve high economic value, finally, after
simulating the building model in DesignBuilder to reach the highest energy saving and ensure the
thermal comfort for users, the design is evaluated by LEED criteria to measure the environmental
impact of the building and indicate how this design is successful or not.
Finally, this research focuses on proposing a design design cliteria and apply it on designing new
commercial buildings to enhance the building performance and being environmentally integrated
based on design design cliteria that represent the three major design principles and they are Nature,
Culture and Art. Nature for respecting and integrating with the environment, Culture for respecting
the location and user’s needs, Art for offering a unique architecture design leave strong mental image
impression.
Introduction
As climate change effect on our daily life is clear, and the awareness of greenhouse gases damages is
increased, architects and many developers necessitate green and sustainable building design by
focusing on energy efficiency, avoiding harmful materials, and taking care of indoor air quality to
construct environmentally friend buildings. Also, adopting energy efficiency strategies and renewable
energy applications generally in buildings design and specially in commercial one will drop the
produced amount of CO2 emissions, as well as, operational emissions and embodied emissions are
attributed to the building materials and energy required for construction, will likely dominate new
building life cycle emissions by 2050. [1]
From this point of view, this research focuses on proposing a design proposal for new commercial
buildings and the ability to enhance the building performance to be environmentally integrated based
on design criteria represented in three major principles and they are Nature, Culture and Art.
Commercial buildings are not limited to stores, but also include offices, gymnasiums, libraries, clinics
and more. As indication of the augmenting of commercial buildings volume, in the U.S., 5.9 million
commercial buildings in 2018 an increase of 56% in number of buildings since 1979. Also,
commercial building floor space is expected to increase by 33% from 2020 to 2050 [2]. The typical
commercial buildings, energy efficiency measures can reduce energy consumption by 20-30% with
no significant design alterations. [3], [4]
Any sustainable building design especially public buildings like commercial or administrative
buildings must be evaluated by environmental rating system like LEED or BREAM or local rating
systems to assess the design effect on building users health and behaviors. Nowadays, there are many
environmental assessment tools have been developed to evaluate green building designs all over the
world. Internationally, LEED rating system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the
most widely used green building rating system in the world, as LEED provides a design cliteria for
healthy, efficient, carbon and cost-saving green buildings [5]. Locally, in Egypt, GPRS (Green
Pyramid Rating System) is a rating system for assessing buildings that will be new constructed, this
system was launched in 2011 by the green building Council in Egypt and US Green Building Council.
Also, there is another new Egyptian rating system named TASHEED was developed by Egypt Green
Building Council (EGBC) (a non-governmental organization called) with the goal of encouraging the
design and construction of sustainable buildings in Egypt. [6]
Research methodology
This research is proposing energy efficient commercial building design proposal for existing land as
an approach to green architecture in Egypt. First, commercial buildings impact is studied, then
choosing energy simulation tool to assess the solution, the design the commercial building proposal
with respect for triple bottom line of sustainability, to introduce efficient and environmental building
respecting users’ needs and achieve high economic value, finally, after simulating the building model
in DesignBuilder to reach the highest energy saving and ensure the thermal comfort for users, the
design is evaluated by LEED criteria to measure the environmental impact of the building and indicate
how this design is successful or not.
Commercial sustainable design
Studying and offering different design proposals for environmentally friend commercial buildings
that will be evaluated by environmental rating system is a must. Commercial buildings are a major
energy consumer building type, for example, they consumed 18% of all energy in the U.S. in 2020
and this energy consumption represents increase by 59% from 1980. [7]. In Egypt, over 55% of the
total electricity consumption is attributed to residential, commercial, and institutional buildings.
Artificial lighting is estimated to account for 36% of the electricity used in the commercial sector
during 2013 and 2014. A significant increase in electricity demand is expected over the next few
years with a growth rate of 6.8% [8]. This amount of energy consumption reflects on the produced
carbon dioxide (CO2) as in 2020 in the U.S. only, these commercial buildings emitted 718 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), which represents approximately 16% of all U.S. CO2 emissions
that year because of fossil fuels consumption to provide energy.[9] . According to many studies, the
design, construction, operation, and demolition of commercial buildings impact natural resources,
environmental quality, worker productivity, and community well-being so it’s essential to integrate
appropriate environmental design cliteria in this building design. [10]
So, the proposed design in this research is focusing in designing low energy consumption commercial
building and the common areas are naturally ventilated as approach for sustainable building design
in Egypt.
Energy simulation as an architectural design tool
The ability to produce energy efficient design proposals within the architectural field is becoming a
requirement more than an option. [11]
As part of the development design strategy, an extensive simulation analysis is carried to determine
the most energy efficiency solution suitable for commercial building in this specific location. There
are more than one software to simulate building energy performance like DesignBuilder, Ecotect,
Revit Insight, and more. But the chosen one in this study is DesignBuilder because DesignBuilder
provides accurate energy, comfort, cost and daylighting performance data to help inform and guide
your design decisions in addition to the ability to simulate design CFD (Computational Fluid
Dynamic) [12].
Building Form and openings are considered one of the fundamental design features of energy-
efficient buildings. Unfortunately, integration of daylighting in commercial buildings is almost never
considered in Egypt but in this proposed design it is essential design factor.
Application case study
The research case study is design proposal for energy efficient commercial building that represents
an approach to green architecture in Egypt. First, commercial buildings impact is studied, then
choosing energy simulation tool to assess the solution as DesignBuilder software, the design of
commercial building proposal respect the triple bottom line of sustainability, to introduce innovative,
efficient and environmental building design respecting users’ needs and achieve high economic value,
finally, after simulating the building model in DesignBuilder to reach the highest energy saving and
ensure the thermal comfort for users, the design is evaluated by LEED criteria to measure the
environmental impact of the building and indicate how this design is successful or not.
This paper proposes a design cliteria for designing sustainable innovative commercial building design
in Egypt as shown in Figure 1 that site analysis is essential start, then design must achieve these three
main values (Culture – Nature – Art) by interacting with project location, users’ needs, market needs
and sustainability principals at the same time, also, it summarizes results of a detailed simulation
analysis to the building energy use and Co2 emission.
This study applies the proposed design cliteria in designing commercial building at Fifth settlement,
Cairo, Egypt where the climate known as hot and arid climate.
The project land area is 7000m2 and building footprint is 120%, project consist of ground and 3floors,
40% of project area at ground floor, 30% at first floor, 27% at second floor, and 23% at third floor.
Figure 1: Proposed design cliteria for sustainable commercial buildings, Source: Authors
5.1 Site analysis
Project site is analyzed to determine the advantages to integrate it in the design and the disadvantages
to avoid it or create a solution to deal with it. As, project sun path is studied, prevailing wind direction
is determined which represents main design factor and surrounded noise location as shown in Figure
2. The project land forms triangle shape and the total area is 7000m2 , and the tallest side located on
the main road.
Figure 2: Project Site analysis
5.2 Environmental Design concept development
In the design concept development stages, all the previous weather factors are considered in addition
to the values that needed to be considered in the design like aesthetic, environmental, cultural values.
Design concept steps are developed as shown in Figure 3. First, the design starts to interact with site
edges to create inner plaza, but the customers can interact with the main elevation only and the hole
project cannot be naturally ventilated. Second try achieved good natural ventilation to the project but
still project main façade separate customers form integration to the hole project. Third try concept
developed to degrade each floor mass to expand the opening and let the highest amount of prevailing
winds to flow in the project, also create wider vision angle for all the project units. The fourth and
last design development based on maximizing the prevailing wind flow through the project by
integrated 6 vertical courtyards, also these openings solved the problem of users’ visual integration
from inside or outside the project.
Figure 3: Environmental Design concept development, Source: Authors
5.3 Project Natural Ventilation study
The project is designed to maximize the benefits of prevailing wind and enhance hole project natural
ventilation, great semi-opened plaza and 6 vertical courtyards were distributed all over the project
mass to facilitate the wind flow as approach to reduce project energy consumption to the minimum.
Also, project elements are distributed to minimize the effect of solar radiation on the project to reduce
the mechanical loads that needed in cooling process, as approach to reduce total building energy
consumption. Corridors and services area are positioned in high solar radiation places to protect
project main elements. As shown in Figure 4 the plan is divided into 3 zones, at zone 1 and 2 all units
are oriented to north and service corridor located in south for zone 1 and located in west for zone 2
to enhance day lighting and reduce heat radiation on commercial and administrative units.
Zone 3 all units are oriented to main street view and building mass is degraded to create horizontal
shades to protect south façade.
Figure 4: ventilation study for each floor, Source: Authors
5.4 Project model environmental simulation
Phase 3 at the design concept is considered as environmental proposal but phase 4 is enhancement to
this environmental design, so phase 3 represents the basic model to simulate and phase 4 represents
the final proposed design, each model is constructed at DesignBuilder software as shown in Figure 5
and the results are compared to define the benefits.
Figure 5: Basic conceptual model and developed final model at DesignBuilder, Source: Authors
Simulations had been done to ensure that the design is ready to be LEED certified. Project design
increases energy efficiency in the hole building and ensures the highest possible indoor air quality
while maintaining the most cost-effective energy consumption levels which lead to less CO2 emission
and more efficient building.
As LEED certificate is effective tool for assessing the sustainability of a building design, construction,
and operational stages. This building design achieves all LEED prerequisites, and they are included
in the early design stage.
Results
Simulations had been done to ensure that the design is sustainable and ready to be LEED certified.
Project design increases energy efficiency in the hole building and ensures the highest possible indoor
air quality while maintaining the most cost-effective energy consumption levels which lead to less
CO2 emission and more efficient building.
After running the simulations for conceptual design phasis the final model is less in energy
consumption by 48%, adding vertical courtyards reduce cooling energy consumption from 858 MWh
to 456 MWh which means 46% energy saving, also, this resulting 40% reduction in Co2 building
production.
At the end, this paper represents a high-performance commercial building is a building that uses
whole-building design to achieve energy, economic, and environmentally sustainable performance.
Summary
This research is recommending follow the proposed design design cliteria to design sustainable
commercial buildings. The proposed design design cliteria for commercial buildings based on three
main values to respect and integrate in design (Culture – Nature – Art).
References
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