- Simulate the Impact of Urban Morphology on Energy Demand   667 kb by    Shang, Chuan & Ko-Yang, Lin & Hou, Guoying | shangchuan989@gmail.com    Short Outline This study attempts to simulate the impacts of urban morphology to the energy demand of buildings, using an urban design scheme in Yinchuan, China as a case. The process of simulation is applied to the one proposed project with three different scenarios, each of which is verified by four variables. Abstract Reducing energy demand of buildings is one of the primary approaches to achieve sustainable development. The most extant studies mainly emphasize how to reduce the energy demand at building scale (e.g. the use of low U- Value materials and structure of the envelop). However, a few researchers address energy saving at urban scale, in particular the impact of urban morphology and distribution of building types on building energy demand. It is known that strategic planning at early stage would maximize energy demand savings. The aim of this study attempts to explore the impacts of urban morphology to the energy demand of buildings, using simulation tools developed by Welsh School of Architecture, UK, as known as VirVil Plugin and HTB2. The process of simulation is applied to the one proposed project with three different scenarios, meanwhile, the study conducts four variables for each scenario: 1) the geometry characteristics of building, including forms, height, and wall-to-volume ratio; 2) orientation of building and community; 3) urban pattern; 4) distribution of building types. The project is chosen from an urban design scheme of Yuehai Eco-City in Yinchuan, China, by Architects& Engineers Ltd. of Southeast University, China. The case is selected for its typical weather style, where the demands of both heating and cooling are required. The expected results could indicate quantitative correlation between urban morphology features and the energy performance of buildings at urban scale. Furthermore, the results will improve the current design principles and guidance, and provide a new perspective for how to reduce the energy demand at a master planning stage. Finally, the study also implies the method could spread globally. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper