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A decade ago, Geo-solar Exergy Storage Technology (GEST) was introduced as a means of utilizing natural, diurnal and seasonal transfers of exergy between a building and its surroundings to significantly decrease heating and cooling requirements. This is accomplished by retrofitting the structure with a dynamic skin to the existing building enclosure that is provided with internal conduits to carry air and fluids, for coupling geothermal storage surrounding the building with the exterior environment. This system was developed by engineers as an affordable, low-tech solution for providing seasonal heat storage in cold climate regions. Meanwhile another holistic but high-tech means to the same goal was initiated by an international group of building scientists by defining concepts for environmental quality management (EQM). Using heat pumps, ‘smart controls’, and newly developed wall coating materials, a fully integrated HVAC (plus moisture control and indoor air quality (IAQ)) system was proposed. The experience gained with GEST methods is now combined with the leading edge of Building Science to permit our international team to re-evaluate the concept of Geo-solar Exergy Storage and Dynamic Building Enclosure incorporated in a system with a heat pump as a new basis for retrofitting buildings in any climate.

The concept of environmental quality management has been described in papers [1 - 4] that looked at the next generation of low energy buildings from the point of view of the occupant. Optimizing energy use is difficult for a few reasons: presence of dramatic changes in the manner we design and operate buildings, change in the role of an architect who must be a leader of interacting team, often quality management is biased towards the design more than on performance of the finished product and finally the need for integrated monitoring and modeling in the occupancy stage. Effectively, we are integrating heating/cooling and ventilation with the structure at the same time as we verify the appropriateness of the new methods to evaluate performance of these systems. In this process we require double controls, one by the occupant and the other by the computerized (smart) control system. The traditional approaches to modify human behavior generally failed because occupants were not given enough control over their environment. Thus, a major part of the trend to a low-carbon, climate resilient future will be focused on methodology to include path from a complex field testing of building performance to simplified testing that combined with simple monitoring and data from utilities would allow assessment of the energy and carbon emission in a district of a city. Our experience shows that preliminary design must be optimized during the period of service for all more complex buildings such as large residential, office or commercial buildings. In this context the artificial neural network approach appears to have significant advantages. Yet, traditionally ANN requires large data set to establish functional relations during the learning stage and therefore the first question is how precise can the control of temperature be when the heat exchanger is subjected to different climatic conditions.

Another group of authors has also focused on developing a building envelope system suitable for energy retrofitting of existing buildings, pointing out that energy retrofitting of existing buildings can play a key role in achieving global ambitious energy saving and environmental protection goals. The paradigm shift towards integrated building design, also progressing towards dynamically operated buildings, facilitates integration of different professions in both design and construction. [Extracted from the article]

Knowledge accumulated in the past from observed construction failures has formed the basis for a predictive capability. More recently, it has been observed that interactions between energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality and moisture management are important and should be considered simultaneously. As a result, the term 'indoor environmental control' has become a focus of the building-science community. Forty years ago, in Canada, 10 passive houses were built, but broad public acceptance of this new technology waited for almost 20 years. Now, 40 years later, we are coming to the stage of implementing low energy-use technologies, and questions about how to accelerate public acceptance remains a challenge. We believe that the role of the academic community must be broadened to include active collaboration with authorities that control construction through codes and standards. As an example, a new compact design package called 'environmental quality management' (EQM) that is applicable to different climates with modifications of some hygrothermal properties is proposed. In this position paper, the concept of EQM follows from an examination of the history of building science with projection into the future. Building science (physics) is needed to provide direction for the transition to the 'sustainable built environment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]