Climate-responsive design means shaping a building according to
Answer: A
A composite climate wants shading and thermal mass, a cold one wants solar gain and insulation, and a warm humid one wants ventilation above all. Applying one climate's solution in another is how buildings come to need large plant to correct their own design.
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A building in a warm humid climate should be designed above all for
Answer: B
Air movement is what makes high humidity bearable, and shading keeps the solar gain out, whereas thermal mass has little to work with where the day and night temperatures differ so little. The mass strategy belongs to a hot dry climate.
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Thermal mass is most effective in a climate with
Answer: C
Mass absorbs heat by day and gives it up to the cool night air, which is why traditional buildings in hot dry regions have thick walls. Where the nights are as warm as the days there is nothing to discharge the mass into.
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The time lag of a wall is the delay between
Answer: D
A heavy wall may delay the peak by eight or ten hours, so the heat arrives after the occupants have left and can be discharged overnight. Selecting the mass to place the peak outside occupied hours is the object of the calculation.
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A compact building form is preferred in an extreme climate because it
Answer: A
Heat crosses the envelope, so minimising envelope per unit of enclosed space minimises both the gain and the loss. The penalty is a deep plan needing artificial light and mechanical ventilation, so the two considerations pull against one another.
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The surface to volume ratio of a building is a measure of
Answer: B
Correct answer: how much envelope encloses a given volume
Heat is lost and gained through the envelope while the volume is what must be conditioned, so a low ratio means less exchange for the same accommodation. A compact form therefore starts with an advantage - which is why a cube outperforms a sprawling plan of the same floor area, and why small buildings are harder to insulate to the same standard.
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The long facades of a building in the northern hemisphere are best oriented
Answer: C
Correct answer: north and south, so the east and west walls are short
South glazing receives a high sun that an overhang can shade in summer and admit in winter, and north glazing gets diffuse light with almost no gain. East and west receive a low sun that is very hard to shade, so those elevations are made as short as possible. Orientation is the cheapest of all energy measures, since it costs nothing at design stage.
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West-facing glazing is the most difficult to shade because the afternoon sun is
Answer: D
A horizontal overhang cannot intercept a low sun, so vertical fins or an external screen is needed, and the gain coincides with the hottest part of the day. Reducing the west glazing is usually cheaper than shading it.
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The U-value of a construction is
Answer: A
Each layer contributes a resistance equal to its thickness over its conductivity, the surface films add two more, and the reciprocal of the total is the transmittance. A lower value means a better insulated construction.
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Adding insulation to a wall reduces its U-value because insulation has a low
Answer: B
A material of conductivity 0.04 contributes twenty-five times the resistance of the same thickness of brick, which is why fifty millimetres transforms a wall. Its low density is a consequence of the trapped air rather than the cause of the insulation.
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