A proposed new weighting system for passive design approach in BEAM Plus

Abstract

Building environmental assessment method (BEAM) has been practiced by local architects and engineers as references for green building design over the last 20 years. The current version of BEAM Plus v1.2 has introduced the passive design concept to make the rating scheme in line with the state-of-art energy efficient design in the world. However, the introduced passive design approach is criticized for its arguable criteria allocation, unjustified weighting system and incompatibility with the existing whole building energy simulation approach. In view of these flaws, a new weighting system based on different global sensitivity analysis methods, robust energy end-use statistics and a green building case study is proposed in this article. The total available credits of sub-criteria are determined according to the ratio of the cooling and lighting energy consumption in the total end-use energy data of residential buildings. Eventually, the priorities of assessment criteria are derived from the sensitivity analysis of a generic building model based on a simultaneous variation of different design parameters. The results from this research can help stakeholders in a green building project to identify design strategies with the largest impact over building performance and obtain an optimized preliminary design in the early planning stage.