Active Design Features in Hot-Humid Countries: Summary of a Survey
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15282/construction.v5i1.12218Keywords:
Active design features, Brunei, Hot-humid countries, Sustainable designAbstract
Although passive design strategies considerably reduce building energy consumption and CO2 emission, they cannot be used alone, as they rely on the sun and wind, which may not always maintain comfortable ambient temperature during different times of the day, season and year. Various active design features are therefore used to complement the situation. This requires practicing suitable active features that match the underlying climate of different regions/countries. As such, the aim of this study was to identify the practice of various active design features for buildings in hot-humid countries like Brunei. A quantitative questionnaire survey of 122 responses from construction industry participants was used. It was observed that seven of the commonly known eight active features are seen to be consistently practiced in Brunei, with the priority of electric lighting system, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and electric fans. Although practicing these features are not sustainable, such priority might have the roots in relatively much lower energy price. Moreover, some more sustainable active features are practiced less frequently or of low priority, like solar panels, cool roof technology, and heat pump technology. These may be more preferred in some other countries, with high energy price. Respondents are not sure about the application of only one active feature: operable louvers or blinds, probably due to lack of information and knowledge. Similar priority was observed in different groups based on affiliation and profession. The only disagreements observed on the level of importance of two active features by the groups based on affiliation, although the features were seen consistently important in all the groups. The overall results were interpreted as a lack of awareness and information on the sustainability aspect of using energy, as respondents preferred less-sustainable active features due to low energy price. Policy makers are expected to use the outcomes in devising suitable programs and regulation, towards practicing more sustainable design features of buildings in hot-humid countries.
Downloads
References
[1] X. Cao, X. Dai, and J. Liu, “Building energy-consumption status worldwide and the state-of-the-art technologies for zero-energy buildings during the past decade,” Energy and Buildings, vol. 128, pp. 198–213, 2016.
[2] United Nations Environment Programme, “2019 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction,” 2019. Available: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-status-report-for-buildings-and-construction-2019
[3] United Nations Environment Programme, “2022 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction,” 2022. Available: https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/2022-global-status-report-buildings-and-construction
[4] A. Atmaca and N. Atmaca, “Life cycle energy (LCEA) and carbon dioxide emissions (LCCO2A) assessment of two residential buildings in Gaziantep, Turkey,” Energy and Buildings, vol. 102, pp. 417–431, 2015.
[5] A. M. Fattah, J. Aminata, I. Susilowati, and A. Pujiyono, “Causality Analysis: Economic growth, economic openness, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emission Indonesia,” Media Ekonomi dan Manajemen, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 124-134, 2021.
[6] N. A. H. Juffle and M. M. Rahman, “An overview of motivators and challenges of passive design strategies,” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 1195, no. 1, p. 012039, 2023.
[7] M. Saridaki and K. Haugbølle, “Towards sustainable design: Integrating data from operation of buildings in design practices,” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 588, no. 5, p. 052051, 2020
[8] S. Kubba, “Components of Sustainable Design and Construction,” Chapter 2, Handbook of Green Building Design and Construction: LEED, BREEAM, and Green Globes, 2nd edn., Elsevier BH, pp. 55-110, 2017.
[9] Y. Deng, Z Li, and J. M. Quigley, “Economic returns to energy-efficient investments in the housing market: Evidence from Singapore,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 506–515, 2012
[10] D. King, “Innovate Green Office: A new standard for sustainable buildings,” Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers – Energy, vol. 160, pp. 105–111, 2007.
[11] P. Cook and A. Sproul, “Towards low-energy retail warehouse building,” Architectural Science Review, vol. 54, pp. 206–214. 2011.
[12] K. Raviraj, N. Gupta, and H. N. Shet, “Analysis of measures to improve energy performance of a commercial building by energy modelling,” In 2016 Online International Conference on Green Engineering and Technologies (IC-GET), pp. 1–4, 2016.
[13] B. Daud, “Tropical sustainable architecture: Passive design strategies in green building,” Journal Online Jaringan Pengajian Seni Bina, vol. 17, pp. 1-9, 2020.
[14] W. Khaliq and U. B. Mansoor, “Energy efficient design and sustainable buildings,” In 2014 International Conference on Energy Systems and Policies (ICESP), pp. 1-8, 2014.
[15] M. Khoukhi, A. K. Shaaban, and O. Khatib, “Passive environmental design of an eco-house in the hot-humid climate of the Middle East: A qualitative approach,” Cogent Engineering, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 1837410, 2020.
[16] T. Kubota, T. Takahashi, A. R. Trihamdani, H. Mori, and T. Asawa. “Development of a wind catcher for high-rise apartments in the hot-humid climate of Indonesia,” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 1007, no. 1, p. 012008, 2022.
[17] T. Sikram, M. Ichinose, and R. Sasaki, “Assessment of thermal comfort and building-related symptoms in air-conditioned offices in tropical regions: A case study in Singapore and Thailand,” Frontiers in Built Environment, vol. 6, p. 567787, 2020.
[18] C. Mitterer, H. M. Künzel, S. Herkel, and A. Holm, “Optimizing energy efficiency and occupant comfort with climate specific design of the building,” Frontiers of Architectural Research, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 229–235, 2012.
[19] Z. Wang, R. de Dear, M. Luo, B. Lin, Y. He, A. Ghahramani, and Y. Zhu, “Individual difference in thermal comfort: A literature review,” Building and Environment, vol. 138, pp. 181–193, 2018.
[20] A. Katili, R. Boukhanouf, and R. Wilson, “Space cooling in buildings in hot and humid climates - A review of the effect of humidity on the applicability of existing cooling techniques,” In 14th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies, vol. 3, p. 90. 2015.
[21] N. Murtagh, A. Roberts, and R. Hind, “The relationship between motivations of architectural designers and environmentally sustainable construction design,” Construction Management and Economics, vol. 34, pp. 61–75, 2016.
[22] F. Shi, S Wang, J. Huang, and X. Hong, “Design strategies and energy performance of a net-zero energy house based on natural philosophy,” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1-15. 2019.
[23] M. Suhaimi, N. Ramli, M. Hamid, A. Kassim, and S. Munaff, “Active and passive strategies to improve energy efficiency for healthcare building,” In AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2233, no. 1, p. 050015, 2020.
[24] M. Tavakol and R, Dennick, “Making sense of Cronbach’s alpha,” International Journal of Medical Education, vol. 2, pp. 53–55, 2011.
[25] D. Wulandari, S. Sutrisno, and M. B. Nirwana, “Mardia’s skewness and kurtosis for assessing normality assumption in multivariate regression,” Enthusiastic International Journal of Applied Statistics and Data Science, vol. no. 1, pp. 1–6, 2021.
[26] N. H. Julayhe and M. M. Rahman, “Greening existing buildings for energy efficiency: A review,” International Journal on Emerging Technologies, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 366–380, 2020.
[27] M. Rawat and R. N. Singh, “A study on the comparative review of cool roof thermal performance in various regions,” Energy and Built Environment, vol. 3, pp. 327–347, 2022.
[28] A. M. Ahmed, W. Sayed, A. Asran, and I. Nosier “Identifying barriers to the implementation and development of sustainable construction,” International Journal of Construction Management, vol. 23, pp. 1277–1288, 2023.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 The Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
