RESUMO
Governments have established regulations to reduce energy consumption and polluting gas emissions from buildings. In Colombia, the government issued Resolution 0549 in 2015, a regulation that imposed savings percentages on different types of buildings. Builders have had to improve their designs to meet this standard. However, this task requires a detailed understanding of the energy behaviour of buildings. In the absence of follow-up data, this study performed energy characterisations of a group of 20 residential and office buildings located in a tropical climate using DesignBuilder software. The simulations show a notable influence of plug-in loads on energy consumption as well as favourable thermal comfort conditions for all categories except for the low-income category. Solar radiation through windows is the largest source of heat in buildings. Additionally, the study shows the impact of a set of energy-saving measures on energy consumption. The results of this study can help designers reduce the energy consumption of tropical buildings and/or meet energy performance standards.
RESUMO
In the Panama context, energy consumption in the building sector is mostly related to the conditioning of indoor spaces for cooling and lighting. Different nature strategies can be mimic to strongly impact these two aspects in the building sector, such as the ones presented here. A comprehensive analysis regarding literature related to biomimicry-based approaches destined to improve buildings designs is presented here. This analysis is driven by the increasing energy regulations demands to meet future local goals and to propose a framework for applications in Panama. Such biomimicry-based approaches have been further analyzed and evaluated to propose the incorporation of organism-based design for three of the most climate types found in Panama. Consequently, a SWOT analysis helped realized the potential that biomimicry-based approaches might have in improving the odds of in meeting the local and global regulations demands. The need for multidisciplinary collaboration to accomplish biomimicry-based-designed buildings, brings an increment in the competitivity regarding more trained human-assets, widening the standard-construction-sector thinking. Finally, the analysis presented here can serve as the foundation for further technical assessment, via numerical and experimental means.