101 Rules of Thumb for Low Energy Architecture

Preface

Throughout history, people have constructed buildings with an intuitive responsiveness towards the environment and the climate in which they live, ensuring their own comfort while respecting limited resources and working with, not against, the forces of nature. By returning to an understanding of the basic principles involved in the ways that buildings respond to their surroundings, we can significantly reduce energy needs. Guidance on how to design buildings that need little or no energy for heating, lighting and cooling is the specific focus of this book.

We use energy to heat, light and cool our buildings. Much of the energy we use is derived from fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas), which are finite global resources. They will eventually ...