Hand calculations or computer calculations? Teaching Passive Solar Design

摘要

The teaching of energy conservation and passive solar design to architecture students certainly requires the use of calculations to understand the overall thermal perofrmance of a building. The computer would seem to be the perfect antidote to the tedium and errors inherent in hand calculations, especially in refining a design through multiple iterations. Both Energy-10 and ASolar-5 are used, but have limitations in their inputs that limits the designer's freedom of exploration - a critical problem in a design school. When some basic passive measures aren't easily modeled and more complex designs are difficult to input - then this instructor is concerned and his students are frustrated. The students clearly appreciate the accuracy of the computer simulations, but the time and complexity of preparing the inputs seems to impede their design process for the building. The author suggests a design process that emphasizes the development of quality architectural design as the primary goal. This process utilizes quick hand calculations (including the SSF method) and rules of thumb to develop the schematic design, and then incorporating computerized energy simulations to fine tune the energy performance.