Low Carbon Sustainable Office Building Research

Currently new construction area in China has exceeded the total built construction area of all developed countries, and accounts for nearly50%of the world sum. Annual energy consumption of buildings reached more than27%of China’s total energy consumption. During the development of energy-efficient building, a series of relevant technologies and products have been widely studied and used in the world. Meanwhile, energy-efficient building practices have also merged as model buildings in foreign countries, while demonstration buildings based on dual objective of energy efficiency and low-carbon emissions are still rarely seen in China.In this article, the author firstly discussed the leading international comprehensive green architecture rating system such as BREEAM, LEED and GBTool. By elaborating commonness and differences between the objects, intent, mechanism of international rating systems, the author further discussed China’s green building rating system based on international practices and its own situation. Then this article put forward a comprehensive and integrated low carbon design strategy, among which high efficient energy management system was the core. Water saving technologies, building waste management plan, designs of building with integrated renewable energy sources and awareness raise and behavior change were also required.On the basis of previous chapter, the author primarily decided the overall design frame for the office building of Environmental Protection Agency in Qian’an city. Then the author gradually added low carbon design perspectives and expanded design system by analyzing local climate, wind, solar radiation, temperature and humidity of Qian’an City, and also by further verifying suitable building site, view, buffer to road, and etc. Eventually this article formed a set of integrated and adaptive low-carbon sustainable strategies. Detailed strategies were further discussed in various aspects regarding passive solar shading, natural ventilation, lighting design, water and solar energy systems and so on, each of which was elaborated and combined relatively in winter and summer.In chapter5, the author worked on expected building performance features as thermal performance and lighting quality. While studying thermal performance of proposed building, the author described specifications and thermal values of the construction materials of building envelope. While studying internal lighting quality, the author conducted lighting simulations based on different space type, dimension and function. Through comparison of energy consumption data of proposed and base case building after thermal dynamic simulation, the author concluded that the proposed building has a22.5%lower demand for annual heating demand than a base case building, and10times lower cooling load due to the passive ventilation strategy in summer. As a result, the proposed building had approximately75%savings in its anticipated energy consumption at early design stage. Meanwhile, the range of annual temperatures that are expected in the office areas after applying the strategies is within the thermal comfort zone. Lighting design strategy also successfully realized combination of day-lighting and artificial lighting, usage of high efficient LED fixtures and lighting control systems, and flexible change of lighting scenarios.