The Impact of Adjacencies on Interior Thermal Behavior

This paper attempts to investigate the impact of building arrangement on energy efficiency of buildings. To this end, energy consumption of typical buildings has been simulated for heating, cooling and lighting. The location of buildings is assumed to be in a street in central Tehran. Six block arrangements are assumed for two rows of buildings. In a typical arrangement, buildings are located on the north side of each plot and lighting for middle and northern spaces is provided through a patio. In a linear arrangement, two rows of buildings are located on the north and south sides of facing plots and there is no need for patio lighting. Other arrangements include ‘L’, ‘U’ and courtyard arrangement. The simulation results indicate that the courtyard arrangement is most energy-efficient for lighting both in summer and winter months. For heating and cooling purposes the typical arrangement has the highest energy-efficiency, however.