Parametric Urban optimization by balancing energy performance and environmental quality applied to Residential Buildings in four different climates in Morocco

Abstract

As a developing country, Morocco has maintained the same definition for social housing in the past decades. A definition where housing affordability triumphs over efficiency in both the building and exploitation phases. This paper aims to put together a rational design approach to minimize energy demands in social housing residential complexes. Thus, the project aims to improve on the quality of the subsidized social houses in the country. The analysis focuses on 4 thermal zones of the national thermal map, by working on 4 cities which are Agadir, Driouch, Marrakech and Meknes. Our main objective is to explore the trade-offs of different urban distributions on the overall energy performance in a residential complex. Henceforth, this approach puts together a parametric design methodology which allows automating the process of thermal and lighting simulation, using Grasshopper. The approach resulted in a total number of 5 994 iterations for each of the chosen regions of analysis. The project therefore explored the impact of chosen discrete values of various factors (Building Typology, Orientation, distance between buildings, Window/Wall Ratio) on the overall energy consumption and the natural light performance, by evaluating annual energy consumption, Monthly Load Matching Index, LMI, and Spatial Daylight Autonomy, SDa.