Optimizing Shapes of Structures for Generating Energy

Improving the environmental performance of new and existing buildings and ensuring that our construction related activities are carried out in a way that minimizes their environmental impact is an important task towards achieving environmental compatibility. The outside shape of a building and how it is constructed can have a significant impact on the amount of energy that is needed to operate it. The outside shape is typically formed by the building envelope, which provides the separation of the inside and the outside environments and provides protection from the outside elements.

The paper examines and discusses the possibility of designing the outside building shapes not just for aesthetics, but for reduction of the operational energy of the building and possibly for generating alternative energy from the effects of the outside elements such as solar heat and radiation, wind and temperature effects on the structure. A further possibility to form and optimize the outside building shapes, so as to maximize their energy generating potential, is explored.