The impact of biophilic design on the energy performance and thermal comfort of conventional apartment buildings

Abstract

In Malta, apartment blockslately have been built without careful consideration of local and international guidelines related to energy performance and thermal comfort. By comparing recent “traditionally” built apartments with biophilic designed apartment, The proposal addressed how biophilic design affect the health and well-being of people trough energy performance and environmental conditions. It showed the benefits of Biophilic design such as retrofitting in the same apartments and a comparison of both scenarios. This study shows a primary focus on thermal comfort analysis that are the result of biophilic design application. The study used quantitative data collected from data loggers and simulation. To analyse the information obtained, simulation was used to compare different scenarios basically the “traditional” with the “biophilic”. A parametric analysis was performed to optimize and identify the best scenario that affects well-being and energy performance. Results were analysed over a whole year of climate data for the Maltese islands. All results were cross-compared and analysed to provide answers to the research question and objective of this study. The results showed the benefits of biophilic design in terms of energy performance, thermal comfort and human well-being. This includes 50% reduction in cooling loads and 45% in heating loads for the ground floor scenario, lower CO2 levels and improved thermal comfort in terms of EN16798-1 adaptive comfort categories. The conclusion presented a holistic approach on how biophilic design can be part of our standards in terms of residential building design.