'Passive design uses layout, fabric and form to reduce or remove mechanical

cooling, heating, ventilation and lighting demand. Examples of passive design

include optimising spatial planning and orientation to control solar gains and
maximise daylighting, manipulating the building form and fabric to facilitate
natural ventilation strategies and making effective use of thermal mass to help
reduce peak internal temperatures.'

Designers tune the thermal characteristics of buildings so that they moderate

external environmental conditions and maintain internal conditions using the
minimum resources of materials and fuel.

Passive design maximises the use of 'natural' sources of heating, cooling and
ventilation to create comfortable conditions inside buildings. It harness
environmental conditions such as solar radiation, cool night air and air pressure
differences to drive the internal environment. Passive measures do not involve
mechanical or electrical systems.

This is as opposed to 'active' design which makes use of active building services
systems to create comfortable conditions, such as boilers and chillers, mechanical
ventilation, electric lighting, and so on. Buildings will generally include both active
and passive measures.

Hybrid systems use active systems to assist passive measures, for example; heat
recovery ventilation, solar thermal systems, ground source heat pumps, and so
on. Very broadly, where it is possible to do so, designers will aim to maximise the
potential of passive measures, before introducing hybrid systems or active
systems. This can reduce capital costs and should reduce the energy consumed by
the building.

However, whilst passive design should create buildings that consume less energy,
they do not always produce buildings that might be considered 'sustainable' as
sustainability is dependent on a range of criteria, only one of which is energy
usage.
Passive design can include:

Passive cooling.

Passive heating.

Passive ventilation (or natural ventilation).

Passive design can include consideration of:

Location.

Landscape.

Orientation.

Massing.

Shading.

Material selection.

Thermal mass.

Insulation.

Internal layout.

The positioning of openings to allow the penetration of solar radiation, visible

light and for ventilation.

In its simplest form, a shallow building orientated perpendicular to the prevailing

wind with openings on both sides, will allow sunlight to penetrate into the middle
of the building and will enable cross ventilation. This should reduce the need for
artificial lighting and may mean that cooling systems and mechanical ventilation
are not necessary. In taller buildings, stack ventilation can be used to draw fresh
air through a building, and in deeper buildings atriums or courtyards can be
introduced to allow light into the centre of the floor plan.
However, difficulties arise, for example; when buildings have cellular spaces that
block the passage of solar radiation and air, or where site constraints create
complex massing or mean that windows cannot be opened because of noise or air
quality issues. This can lead to the introduction of more complex passive
measures, such as trombe walls, solar chimneys (or thermal chimneys), solar
stacks, acoustic louvres, thermal labyrinths, and so on.

The situation is complicated further by different climates, changing seasons, and

the transition from day to night, so that passive design may have to allow
different modes of operation, sometimes rejecting external inputs and expelling
the build up of internal conditions, whilst at other times, capturing external inputs
and retaining internal conditions.

Typically, these variations can be dealt with through measures such as shading,
shutters, overhangs and louvres that allow low-level winter sun to penetrate into
the building, but block the higher summer sun. Thermal mass can be used to store
peak conditions during the day and then to vent them to the outside at night.
Even deciduous trees can be beneficial, their leaves shading buildings from
summer sun, but then allowing the solar radiation to penetrate through their bare
branches during the winter.

Additional complexities can be introduced by internal heat loads such as people

and ICT equipment and by occupancy patterns. In a 9-to-5 office with a moderate
amount of installed equipment, it may be possible to use thermal mass to store
heat loads during the day and then to vent these and cool the thermal mass when
the building is unoccupied at night. This may not be possible with a building such
as a hospital that is continuously occupied.
Considering all these issues early in the design process, so that they can be
incorporated into the fundamental design of the building, requires close working
across the entire design team. The historic model, where the architect designed a
building and then a structural engineer made it stand up and then last of all a
services engineer made it comfortable, is unlikely to achieve a satisfactory result.

Passive design measures can require occupant involvement, for example to open
windows, turn out lights, adjust louvres, and so on. This requires education so
that occupants are able to understand the building and to operate it efficiently.
Occupant behaviour is often cited as one of the prime causes of the 'performance
gap', that is, the difference between the expected and actual energy consumption
of completed buildings.

As well as reducing energy consumption, adopting passive design strategies can

help building ratings across standards such as PassivHaus, BREEAM, the Code for
Sustainable Homes and LEED.

NB: The urban heat island effect, is an effect found in urban environments where
the predominance of hard, heat absorbing surfaces results in a higher ambient
temperature than in rural environments. It has been found that simply selecting
lighter coloured materials that reflect solar radiation rather than absorbing it can
significantly reduce urban temperatures and so the need for active systems to
provide cooling.