THE ENERGY IMPACT OF URBAN MORPHOLOGIES ON GREEN BUILDING EFFICIENCY

　　Abstract:Cities and buildings are key energy users. The fundamental energy pattern of a city consists of various buildings and spaces. This urban morphology interacts with green buildings, with people behaviour and with the local climate. The growth in energy consumption in cities obeys quite simple laws derived from physics and thermodynamics. A green building is an integrated entity: structurally, functionally and environmentally with the city through the city morphology. The paper takes into account all the energy processes that happen in and around green buildings in order to optimize green buildings bioclimatic design and new energies at green building, green neighbourhood and green city scale.

　　By using the passive zone concept and a set of indicators, such as density, roughness, porosity, sinuosity, occlusivity, contiguity, solar admittance and mineralization, and by using an environmental oriented conceptual model of urban fabric, the analysis will connect green building architecture, urban planning, energy flows, climate, and human patterns of behaviour. Comparing different urban morphologies, this cross-regional study will sample such six cities as Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, London, Toulouse and Berlin and make comparison and contrast of their development in bioclimatic and energy efficiency. What we will draw is an understanding of how the city morphology governs the patterns of energy flow in the urban texture, affects local climate around green buildings and what are the most suitable green building forms for renewable energies.

　　Keywords: Energy　　urban morphology　　urban metabolism　　complex systems　climate change