Passive measures for energy-efficient economic class housing units in national housing projects

This study investigates passive building design measures and how they may differ according to the surrounding context. This particularly stands as an important consideration for economic class housing units which are seen as repetitive cluster units of the same architectural design plan. These units have a typical design that does not respond to their contexts, hence, the study proves with evidence that the building performance varies from one city to another, taking three cities Cairo, Alexandria and Aswan of different climatic zones. This is carried through a series of computer simulations using a validated software program to investigate the effect of adding passive design measures on building performance e.g. thermal walls, double glazing system, and shading devices. The results verified the significant difference in building energy performance in the three studied cities. It also showed that shading devices are a common passive design measure that contributed towards reducing energy consumption in the prototype building in the three cities. This showed the necessity of integrating proper passive design features in economic class housing units because they represent a repeated prototype building.