“Sun, Wind & Light” Adopts Net-Zero Focus

The third edition of the seminal text Sun, Wind & Light by Mark Dekay and G.Z. Brown still speaks to the target audience of “architectural designers who are not energy experts” that it did in the first 1985 edition, but it now takes the leap to net-zero. Driven by the call of the Architecture 2030 challenge, this primer on the fundamental design decisions that affect energy use has been completely redesigned with a “hierarchy of strategies” to help architects minimize heating and cooling loads before relying on photovoltaic or wind-generation systems. The updated resource relies on three new methods:

• Mapping design strategies to reveal gaps and identify a hierarchal structure; these maps are provided in Part 1
• Identifying “strategy bundles” to reveal synergistic interrelationships among the issues and chosen approaches; the book explores daylighting, passive cooling, passive solar, and comfortable outdoor microclimates as some fundamental bundles that arise at the building scale
• Creating a design decision chart, which uses questions like “Can spaces with similar heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting requirements be grouped together?” to select design strategies and link them together in bundles

A companion electronic resource offers a searchable version of the second edition that is also sequenced to move from large- to small-scale strategies.

For more information:

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 3^rd edition

John Wiley & Sons Inc.

August 7, 2014 $57