BUILDING MORPHOLOGY IN TERMS OF ENERGY PERFORMANCE

In accordance with the long-term strategic objectives for reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency, adopted by the European Parliament on May 18, 2010 and the subsequent adoption of the 2010/31/EU resolution which increases the level of commitment by 2020 to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, the directive requires Member states design all new buildings with near zero net energy consumptions by December 31, 2020. The aims of the directive can be enforced as a result of the optimization of a building's geometrical shape and orientation in conjunction with excellent building envelope parameters which are currently available. The geometry of the building plays a fundamental role in optimizing energy efficiency for a given building, i.e. compact shape and surface topography. The geometrical shape of a building generally proposed in the conception stage of architectural design, which undergoes relatively few changes throughout the life of the building. In this paper, the impact some input parameters have on the architectural and constructional design of the most frequently applied shapes of residential housing in Slovakia, are presented. By combining input parameters, a regression equation can be used to predict annual heating demand during the initial stage of building design.