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This article provides a comprehensive understanding of small house practices, including the perspective of Finnish architectural experts, by conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews and proposing an individually designed house case study with a particular focus on cost and quality. Key findings based on main themes including the role and qualifications of the architect, architect’s involvement, architect’s fee, reasons to hire an architect, implementation, quality, and cost, highlighted that: (1) architect can assist small house projects in many ways, such as accurately identifying the client’s needs, choosing the most suitable layout, and applications for building permits; (2) allocating sufficient time for planning an average of six months is critical for the thoughts of both the architect and the client to mature in peace; (3) the share of architectural design in the total cost of the project is around 3–5%; (4) it is estimated that the total amount of small houses designed by an architect is between 10–20%; (5) an architect’s typical client is reported to be those who dream of a long-term home and are concerned with aesthetics as well as functional quality; (6) the client is always satisfied with the quality of the house designed by the architect; (7) while an individually designed home may seem more costly than a prefab home, an architect-designed home can be affordable as long as the budget is known from the start of the project. It is believed that this paper will encourage the participation of architects in small house projects that will be expanded and established in the Finnish residential construction industry.

In recent years, machine learning has gradually been applied to building energy-saving designs to reduce the time consumption of the optimization screening stage. However, since most of the existing research scholars come from the fields of computers and engineering, the application of machine learning technology mostly involves complex programming as well as software in the field of engineering, which requires multiple software to be coupled to achieve. In view of the differences between disciplines and the high learning threshold, these theories are difficult to apply and promote in practical work in the field of architecture. In this regard, this paper focuses on the improvement of methods, based on the Grasshopper platform, proposes a detached energy-saving residential form generation design method and process, to explore the optimal energy-saving building form in a more concise and efficient way. Based on this new method, on the basis of verifying its feasibility through a residential building case, two machine learning algorithms, neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM), are compared and studied, and the applicability of these two algorithms in different building performance indicators is further discussed. The results show that the ANN model has the highest accuracy and is more suitable for the prediction of building energy consumption; in view of the simple and fast operation of SVM, it is more suitable for comfort prediction with relatively low accuracy requirements. By combining the above two machine learning methods, work efficiency can be improved while satisfying the prediction of relevant performance indicators. This method can help architects quickly search for the best building energy-saving form design scheme in the scheme design stage and provide data support and information feedback for architects in design conception and deepening.

In this paper, the effect of house envelopes including thermal bridges on the daily, monthly, and annual consumption of the air conditioning system of a detached house and an attached house, with a façade in the east, west, north, or south direction, is investigated; moreover, the capacity of the air conditioning system is calculated for detached and attached houses based on the maximum hourly peak load during severe weather conditions. The four tested house envelopes are exterior insulation and finish system (EIFS), autoclaved aerated concrete block (AAC-B), classical (cement blocks with insulation in between), and AAC column and beam (AAC-CB). The work is conducted using a method that combines the finite element method (COMSOL Multiphysics), building simulation (EnergyPlus), and the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) programs. The results indicated that the annual consumption of the air conditioning system using AAC-B, classical, and AAC-CB envelopes is larger than that of EIFS by about 3.74, 11.53, and 20.70% for the detached house, and 1.8, 2.9%, and 6.7% for the attached house, respectively. The annual consumption of the air conditioner of the detached house is larger than the average consumption of the attached house by about 25.3, 27.7, 35.8, and 41.7% for EIFS, AAC-B, classical, and AAC-CB house envelopes, respectively. Using the different façade directions of the attached house, the average effect of the house envelope type on the air conditioning system capacity is about 8.84%, with a standard deviation of 0.466%.

Low Impact Development (LID) is a sustainable stormwater management approach that aims to control runoff close to its source, mimicking the natural hydrological processes such as infiltration and storage. It is being adopted by many cities, where its implementation is rapidly evolving. The LID practices are small-scale measures; therefore, they need to be widely implemented to impact significantly. The selection of LIDs depends on the land use and characteristics of the area of interest. This study focuses on residential LIDs. First, a systematic and bibliometric literature review is conducted on the residential LIDs articles published up to the year 2020; a total of 94 papers were found in the Web of Science. This review resulted that LID implementation in residential areas still needs to be investigated. To assist the City, engineers, and policy-makers in implementing the suitable LIDs for detached houses, a multi-criteria decision analysis framework incorporating a hydrological model is developed in this study. The commonly used LIDs were identified, which are rain gardens, permeable pavement, rain barrels, soakaways. Seven criteria were selected – runoff depth reduction rate, peak runoff reduction rate, installation cost, maintenance cost, retrofit cost, life cycle, and aesthetical view. For the properties of the single-detached house and LIDs, the standards of Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) were followed. The proposed decision-making framework also was applied to a case study. This framework is still in the preliminary stage, thus holds the potential to convert into a tool that will be handy enough for the homeowners and consume less time. Thesis Master of Applied Science (MASc)

The building sector is one of the largest energy consumers in the world, comprising about 40% of the total energy consumption in numerous countries. Early design decisions have a significant impact on the energy performance of buildings. The paper presents the multi-variable optimization of the selected design parameters in a single-family building in temperate climate conditions. The influence of four types of windows, their size, building orientation, insulation of external wall, roof and ground floor and infiltration on the life cycle costs (LCC) is analyzed. Optimal selection of the design parameters is carried out using genetic algorithms by coupling the building performance simulation program EnergyPlus with optimization environment. The simulations were conducted for seven optimization cases. The analysis is performed for two variants of a building with heating and cooling systems and with a heating system only. Depending on the analyzed case, the life cycle costs decreased from 7% to 34% LCC value of the reference building. In the case of temperate climate, the building optimization (in terms of heat demand only) substantially reduces the heating costs, yet the summer thermal comfort conditions deteriorate significantly.

A traditional Chinese heating system, the Chinese Kang, is used by 175 million people in detached houses in the rural regions of China, especially in Northeast China. This system utilizes biomass such as corn stalks, straw, corncob and energy plants as the heat sources. The objective of this paper is to establish a set of models to simulate the energy performance of the Kang heating system in one Chinese detached house. An experimental field study was carried out to collect practical parameters in a newly constructed Chinese detached house. The dynamic performance of the Kang heating system was simulated by using IDA-ICE 4.0 embedded with an empirical model built in the field study. The results show that the simulation can obtain good overall agreement with the field measurement results. It was confirmed that the Kang model created by IDA-ICE 4.0 is capable of simulating the performance of the Kang system and of calculating energy consumption in the detached house. Moreover, the result reveals that the thermal environment in the present Chinese detached house is still poor during the severe cold season if only the Kang system is used to heat the whole house.

In this paper, two detached houses with photovoltaic system and all-electrified residential equipment were chosen as the research object. The hourly operating situation of electricity genera-tion of photovoltaic system and electricity consumption were investigated. Based on the recorded data, the combination using of the photovoltaic system with the high efficiency equipment, CO2 heat pump hot water heater, also has been examined. The introduction effect of the photovoltaic system was evaluated from the view of energy saving, environmental and economic effect based on the electricity situation such as price, greenhouse gas emission and so on.

The design, location and materials of housings affect its sustainable operation performance. The South Australian government in recent times has promoted middle to high‐ rise apartments in preference to the traditional detached house style in metropolitan Adelaide to minimise household energy consumption. Nevertheless, change in style has limited success and there is a lack of sufficient information for policy makers and residents to implement. This paper studies the perception of the public and provides three different scales to explain the pros and cons of these two types of house style. The results show that middle to high‐rise apartments should be encouraged. It concludes that it is important for us to consider using energy efficient materials to build apartments, locating apartments near public transport nodes, and providing sufficient services such as shops and schools. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Approximately 40% of final energy is consumed in buildings both in Lithuania and the European Union. In cold climate countries major part of the consumed energy is heat. Therefore, in order to build energy efficient buildings it is very important at the design stage to make a right decision regarding the choice of the heating system. The aim of the study is to compare three different heating systems from the point of view of a sustainable development concept. This paper summarizes results of the life cycle analysis, which has been made on the heating systems of an existing residential building. The purpose of this study is to define the primary energy consumption, CO2emissions and investments necessary for the three different heating systems during their life span and to evaluate them applying a multicriteria approach. The systems under consideration are the heating systems comprising a standard cast‐iron gas boiler and steel radiators or a condensing gas boiler combined with floor heating or a condensing gas boiler combined with steel radiators. A life cycle assessment has been made for the life span of 80 years. As a final decision making criteria the 3E criteria is proposed. Individualaus gyvenamojo namo šildymo sistemos gyvavimo ciklo analizė Santrauka Tiek Lietuvoje, tiek EuroposSąjungojepastatuose suvartojama apie 40 % galutines energijos. Šalto klimato šalyse pagrindinis energijos kiekis suvartojamas pastatams šildyti.Todėlstatant energetiškai efektyvius pastatus labai svarbu dar projektuojant priimti teisingus sprendimusdėljųšildymosistemų. Atliktos analizes tikslas buvo palyginti tris skirtingas šildymo sistemas darnaus vystymosi požiūriu. Straipsnyje pateikiami apibendrinti atliktos esamo gyvenamojo namo šildymosistemųvariantu gyvavimo ciklo analizes rezultatai: pirmines energijossąnaudos, CO2 emisija ir investicijos perjųgyvavimo laika. Sistemosįvertintostaikantdaugiakriterinį vertinimą. Atliekanttyrimąbuvo palyginti trys šildymosistemųvariantai: standartinis ketaus katilas su plieniniais radiatoriais, kondensacinis katilas sugrindųšildymu ir kondensacinis katilas su plieniniais radiatoriais. Gyvavimo ciklo analize atlikta imant, kad šildymo sistemos gyvavimo laikas yra 80 metu. Kaip galutinis vertinimo kriterijus pasiūlytas 3E kriterijus. First published online:18 Oct 2010

In this paper, we examine factors affecting owners&rsquo, intention for renovation of their detached houses. Furthermore, we analyze their interest in choosing a one-stop-shop (OSS) service for the renovation, even though such a concept is not yet established in Sweden, but emerging in other parts of Europe. Our study is based on responses to an online questionnaire survey of 971 house owners residing in Kronoberg Region in Sweden. About 76% of the respondents intend to renovate in the near future, with approximately 71% of them preferring to renovate individual components of their dwelling and 5% to renovate their whole house in steps. House owners of younger age, higher income, higher education, and those with an interest for environmental issues, were the ones most interested in physical renovations, which improves energy efficiency of the building. For those house owners, one-stop-shop can facilitate the decision-making process, and help them to choose those measures that will improve their quality of life. Approximately 20% of the respondents had a positive view towards an one-stop-shop, which is an indicator that market for such a service exists. Parameters such as quality of work, cost and energy savings and specification of measures to be adopted are the key for the promotion of one-stop-shop. Additionally, house owners want to have a certain level of involvement in the selection of actors performing the renovation. Moreover, financial incentives, e.g., loans, do not play a significant role for the selection of one-stop-shop, but act as complementary motive for house owners.