The first decision is not a material
Most of what makes a building hot, dark, or expensive to run is fixed in the first week of design, before a single finish is chosen. Which way the long face points. How deep the floor is. Where the openings sit. After that, every problem the building has is answered with equipment, and equipment is the expensive answer.
Orientation, then depth, then openings
These three decisions cost nothing to make and cost a great deal to reverse.
- Turn the building so the harshest sun lands on the surface that can take it.
- Keep the floor shallow enough that daylight reaches the middle on its own.
- Size the openings for daylight and cross ventilation together, not separately.
Those are choices made with a pencil. They are the whole reason a plan gets drawn more than once.
What we do not claim
We do not quote an energy saving, because we have not measured one. Ratings and certifications are not held by this practice, and a figure printed in a brochure is not a measurement. What can be stated is the design decision itself: rooms used in the morning face east, rooms used at night are kept away from the street and from plumbing runs, and the middle of the plan is lit from two sides.
A client can verify every one of those by walking the building.
Where the money actually goes
On a project of any size the running cost of a badly oriented building is a permanent expense. The cost of turning a plan around, at the stage where it is still a plan, is a week.
That is the trade worth explaining at the first meeting, and it is why the orientation is settled before the interiors are discussed.