A Handbook of Sustainable Building Design & Engineering

An Integrated Approach to Energy, Health and Operational Performance

Dejan Mumovic and Mat Santamouris

In the EU the issue of carbon has risen to the top of the political agenda. The current aspiration is to provide zero carbon buildings in the foreseeable future, which might prove to be more challenging then initially anticipated. Although energy is the dominant factor due to its role in tackling the most urgent sustainability issue, i.e. climate change, some of the other equally important issues concerning sustainable building design and engineering have also been addressed in this book:

• health and wellbeing, i.e. the provision of acceptable thermal comfort for occupants and good indoor air quality while maintaining adequate (day)lighting and indoor ambient noise levels
• adaptability to climate change, i.e. improving the capacity of buildings to operate successfully under various climate change scenarios
• operational performance of buildings, i.e. post occupancy evaluation of various aspects of building design

All these challenges cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines and professional routes. The next generation of professionals will require an ability to work more closely with different disciplines and professionals if these challenges are to be met. The subjects covered and the depth to which they are analysed are more than sufficient to meet various syllabus requirements of undergraduate and multidisciplinary postgraduate courses in building services engineering, architecture and facility management. Furthermore, the aim of this book is to challenge the 'silo mentality' approach to building design, whilst promoting awareness of the technical options available to engineers and architects and their suitability for various building-related applications.

Dr Dejan Mumovic
Senior Lecturer in Architectural Engineering
Complex Built Environment Systems (CBES) Group
The Bartlett, University College London (UCL)

and 

Professor Mat Santamouris
Professor of Building Energy
Building Environment Research Group
Physics Department, University of Athens