Field study on determining the impact of design decisions on energy efficiency at settlement scale

Urban settlement patterns are a major factor affecting regional energy consumption and are also one of the causes of energy consumption from buildings on a global scale. For this reason, it is an important and necessary approach to ensure energy efficiency in settlement and structural scales, especially in large-scale projects designed in dense urban fabric, considering the various effects they will cause. Within the scope of this study, the effects of buildings on their surroundings at the settlement and structural scales are analyzed through a group of buildings that contain many functions within the urban fabric and spread over a large area. It is planned to determine the effects of the buildings within the scope of a multi-unit project consisting of a total of 10 blocks in Sakarya Serdivan and opened in 2021, which is clearly separated from the surrounding settlement, on the dense residential, commercial and educational units around them, considering environmental factors in the context of energy efficiency. With this study, it is aimed to reveal the importance of the decisions taken at the design stages for sustainable settlement planning within the urban texture. For this purpose, firstly, a literature review was conducted on the contribution of decisions taken at the settlement and structural form scales in preventing/reducing energy consumption and energy efficient design criteria for the geographical location of the building group under consideration. In this direction, it is aimed to determine the compliance of the buildings in the existing design with these criteria and the effects of the buildings on the built environment at close scale and on the built environment with Autodesk Forma software, which can perform solar analysis, microclimate and comfort analysis with artificial intelligence support by enabling environmental analysis at these scales. Thus, the environmental impacts caused by the building group within itself and within the urban fabric and their relations with settlement geometries such as building layout types, building orientation and forms of buildings were evaluated.