Say 10 years back, there was very little talk about performance of houses, insulation, passive house, passive solar etc. and I remember starting such conversations at every possible opportunity. Visiting builders on site, chatting with friends at a Cafe, designers/architects at conferences...
But these days I am following a couple of groups very intensely discussing what is right and wrong and it almost feels today there is too much talk about house performance. Its becoming a bit confusing. At the end of the day when you study architecture, broadly speaking, there is only one subject that deals with building science. Lets say that most of these topics actually fall under "building science".
I think the problem is that building science wasn't applied enough for many many years, specifically in NZ residential market, we today need to discuss ever bit of it, and argue building code and minimum standards. Every house, whether small or big, budget or "no"budget,... should consider building science, and therefor the performance of this design. You need a home to be comfortable, whether it is an entry level or high-end design. If budget doesn't allow enough insulation, then we should probably make windows smaller? Windows are 'a hole in the wall' and you lose heat through windows much more than you do through the wall.
But it doesn't end there. Performance of the home is paramount, architecture should inspire and encourage us to do great things, to grow and evolve, come up with great ideas and make the world better. And no home can do that, if it isn't warm and comfortable first! Agree?
Some interesting comments were made on the topic of Heat Loss and windows. Sean (Building enclosure engineer) made an interesting calculation, using basic formula definition of R-value (m2K/W), to determine which is more important to focus on. Increasing performance of Windows or the rest of the Building Envelope.
While the actual R-value IS NOT the only element in creating comfortable environment, still made it for an interesting discussion.
Attached below is a screenshot of calculation I have made using Sean's calculation idea, but instead of only comparing walls, I used walls, roof, floor in a simple 200m2 home. Playing around with either increasing the performance of windows or walls here is what I came up with.
Base calculation has approx. code minimum design. The First improvement looked at a standard but better windows with R0.34 and used SIP walls SIP roof and some floor insulation.
Second improvement was to only improve windows with top of the line R0.83 windows. (EU thermally broken, tripe glazing etc etc). It does have a remarkable impact on overall heat loss.
Decreasing amount of windows from 30% WWR (window to wall ratio) to 20% WWR again great impact... showing just how much heat escapes through the windows.
We really need to be smart in where we place windows. Of course heatloss is not the only element ensuring comfortable environment, in fact probably not the most important one at all. But if you have $50k to spend on improvements, it might be an interesting method deciding what to do...