AN EVALUATION OF ARCHITECTURAL FORMS FOR IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN SHOPPING MALL DESIGN, ABUJA

📄 Project Abstract

v Abstract Today's building industry appears to be entering another era of change, with a view toward minimizing carbon footprint. Understanding building forms offers a great chance of changing the current practice to save energy and other natural resources. Depending on any climate, forms have a major influence on energy consumption of a building. The major electricity end uses in shopping malls in Nigeria is attributed to space cooling and lighting. Hence, this research is aimed at evaluating the effect of building forms to enhance energy efficiency in shopping malls in a composite (Hot-humid and Hot-dry) climate such as in Abuja. The research method used in this study are case study, visual survey and simulation. Autodesk Ecotect(R) software is used for the simulations. Seven building forms were evaluated, the Cuboid form, Cylindrical form, Cubic form, L shape, T shape, U shape and Triangular shape. The results indicate that the Cylindrical form is more suitable for the composite cl...