Lowex Building Design for Zeroemission Architecture

Zero emission during operation - this has to be the target for buildings in the near future. This book approaches this goal with the application of the thermodynamic concept of exergy to the built environment, allowing new design and technology concepts that go beyond mere 'energy saving'. This approach reopens rigid passive design paradigms and offers more architectural freedom while ensuring the high performance of buildings. By introducing new approaches for the understanding and analysis of building systems and the dynamic interaction between the active and passive elements of a building, it describes key components required for LowEx building systems. The building cases analysed cover climates as different as the moderate climate of Europe and the hothumid tropics of SouthEast Asia and provide detailed investigation of both the conceptual and deployment details.

Hansjürg Leibundgut has been Professor of Building Systems at the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zurich since September 2005.

Marcel Bruelisauer is a researcher and PhD candidate at the FCL Low Exergy Module. During and since receiving his MSc in civil engineering from ETH Zurich, he has been active in the field of sustainable construction and building systems.

Matthias Mast is a Senior Researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory, which is part of the Singapore-ETH Centre in Singapore. His research work focuses on high performance building systems for the tropical climate.

Forrest Meggers is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University jointly appointed in the School of Architecture and the new Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He was previously in Singapore as Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Architecture at the National University of Singapore where he had travelled initially as a senior researcher in the Singapore--‐ETH Centre’s Future Cities Laboratory.