ABSTRACT
Chapter 20 discusses buildings’ power demands, sources and consequent architectural and urban implications. For renewably generated power, cost-efficiency increases with scale, but neighbourliness, incremental-investment suitability and user-proximity decline. Although eco-technologies are largely seasonally matched: (summer sun; winter wind and wet seasons), energy storage remains problematical. Besides in-ground storage and buildings’ thermal mass, waste-heat ‘mains’ can overcome seasonal mismatches. Although solar heating is free, optimum layouts conflict with social needs. Additionally, overheating and heat-loss avoidance require management. Energy, however, is always cheaper to save than produce. As heat-loss is proportional to surface area, volume reduction and conjoined buildings save energy. Embodied-energy may sound trivial but, whereas operating CO2 is released over a building’s lifetime, manufacturing CO2 is within months, greatly increasing its climate impact. Additionally, as lack of consciousness underlies all pollution, holistic understanding is critically important. Although this sometimes contrasts quantitative and qualitative benefits, inspiration value can outweigh pragmatism.
