The compactness ratio or Form Factor of a building

When addressing the energy efficiency of a building, one of the most important players in the game is the compactness of its thermal envelope. Is there a way to measure the compactness of a building? Yes: it’s the compactness ratio.

DesignPH: the SketchUp plug-in to design Passive Houses in 3D

We finally had the chance to test DesignPH, the SketchUp plug-in that allows you to carry out the preliminary design of passive buildings in 3D. Once the model is created, you can export the data to PHPP (the energy balance…