Impact of the building shape on thermal performance according to the Brazilian Labeling Program

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In the last two decades, with the computational technology evolution, building energy simulation software have arisen, bringing new paradigms to the act of designing. These software outsource perceptual non‑visual aspects to the designer, and thus, help fulfill the architectural preconditions, such as the comfort of the users. Often, such precepts are not incorporated into the design stage either because of the prevailing design approaches, which have changed little over the past four centuries, or because of the incipience of applications of energy efficiency principles to the built‑up development. In this sense, regulations and technical requirements were established by International and National Energy Policies. One of those is the Brazilian Technical Quality Standard for the Energy Efficiency Level of Buildings (Regulamento Técnico da Qualidade para o Nível de Eficiência Energética de Edificações Residenciais), which is applied to the present study. The purpose of the present paper is to study the impact of building shapes on the energy performance using an autonomous housing unit model and the prescriptive method of Technical Quality Standard for the Energy Efficiency Level of Buildings. A relation has been found between the ceiling height and the form factor with an impact on thermal comfort. A comparison was made between the geometries of the models and the performance results were exposed. Finally, it is emphasized that discontinuities and uncertainties verified in the prescriptive method require further analysis of the results obtained, through dynamic simulations.