Improving energy efficiency through the design of the building envelope

Buildings, their surroundings and related enterprises produce more CO₂, generate more pollution, consume more energy, and waste more natural resources than any other human enterprise or industry. Moreover, considerable parts of these environmental impacts are the results of the lodging industry [1]. Hotels are designed as multifunctional buildings to provide different comfort levels and services to guests. It is often desirous to pay for exclusive amenities. Resorts are often developed in untouched and very sensitive ecosystems with little or no consideration taken for the natural or cultural surroundings. Most strategies applied in design and many of the services offered by lodging establishments require the consumption of substantial quantities of energy, water and non-durable products. The efficiency of the resource use starting from the building design to the end-users in hotel facilities is typically low, and the resulting environmental impacts are greater than those caused by other types of commercial buildings of similar size [2]. Decisions taken during the architectural building design play AS important A role in reducing these environmental impacts as DOES THE management of the building. With a goal of enhancing the overall energy performance of hotel buildings, this paper represents a research-design project, located in İzmir-Turkey, based on the effect of passive solar design techniques for designing the building envelopes to develop and demonstrate high performance.