Insights into Improving the Energy Performance of Buildings Taken from UK Case Studies in the Domestic and Education Sectors

Abstract

Buildings are responsible for significant levels of energy consumption. The increasing pressure created by regulation and legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption has led to building designers needing to radically improve the energy efficiency of buildings. The lack of information from past projects is often a barrier to the design of low energy buildings, as many organizations do not have a wide enough know how or available resource to create usable rich 'explicit knowledge' from the valuable concealed 'tacit knowledge' held within the organization. This paper describes how a new online design tool 'LESSONS' aimed at building practitioners is being developed to provide the user with easy access to both explicit and tacit knowledge gained from previous building design experience and the resulting design heuristics. The paper identifies opportunities to improve the energy performance of buildings through insights gained and lessons learnt from the content analysis of 100 case studies of completed buildings in the United Kingdom.