A STUDY OF HISTORICAL BUILDINGS FOR LOW CARBON BUILDING DESIGN

Abstract

There have been concerns that the new construction activities focus more on use of new materials which are more carbon emissive. It is also a common belief that historical buildings are more sustainable and environment friendly. In order to adopt energy efficient construction techniques and practices, it has to be first figured out if given the same climatic conditions and usage, buildings of which time period is energy efficient. More commercial buildings are coming up leading to increase in energy demands; hence the design of the building envelope becomes very important. Just like 'prevention is better than cure', architects and planners need to design energy efficient low carbon buildings, i.e., buildings which are specially engineered or designed to reduce greenhouse gases. This dissertation is about studying whether historical buildings are energy efficient in comparison with contemporary buildings. Modem software has further made energy consumption of a building accurately quantifiable. Three buildings have been studied, and their operating energies quantified .The Analysis of results has shown that adaptively reused historical buildings have similar operating energy as a contemporary building .Moreover the operating energy of a building is reflected in its connected load, i.e. operating load of the appliances, equipments and fixtures used in that building.0O2 emission values obtained clearly reflect the varying annual operating energy requirements of a building. From the above analysis a strategy has been recommended for low carbon building design.