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Fundamentals of Building Energy Dynamics assesses how and why buildings use energy, and how energy use and peak demand can be reduced. It provides a basis for integrating energy efficiency and solar approaches in ways that will allow building owners and designers to balance the need to minimize initial costs, operating costs, and life-cycle costs with the need to maintain reliable building operations and enhance environmental quality both inside and outside the building. Chapters trace the development of building energy systems and analyze the demand side of solar applications as a means for determining what portion of a building's energy requirements can potentially be met by solar energy. The approach taken is a commonsensical one, starting with the proposition that the purpose of buildings is to house human activities, so that conservation measures that negatively affect such activities are based on false economies. The goal is to determine rational strategies for designing new buildings and retrofitting existing buildings to bring them up to modern standards of energy use. The energy flows examined are both large scale (heating systems) and small scale (choices among appliances.).

Audubon House is the inspiring story of how the Audubon/Croxton team converted a 19th-century architectural masterpiece into one of the most environmentally advanced buildings ever designed. Providing a model that can be followed by owners, developers, architects, and building professionals, this book demonstrates how environmental criteria, such as sustainable use of resources, energy efficiency, and air quality can be achieved without sacrificing traditional considerations of cost, functionality, and aesthetics. Built at market cost and using only off-the-shelf technology, Audubon House is sixty percent more energy efficient than the conventional approach would have been. It saves its owners a projected $100,000 dollars annually in operating expenses, and supports an extraordinarily practical, healthy, and handsome office environment. The book is organized into two parts. Part I introduces the project and describes what members of the Audubon team discovered about the environmental impact of buildings and the types of systems that can mitigate this impact. Part II presents four essential systems at Audubon House: lighting, heating and cooling, ventilation and indoor air quality, and recycling. Particular attention is paid to the way in which these systems work together, each contributing to the performance of the whole. These goals could only be realized through the close cooperation of the architects, interior designers, environmentalists, engineers, research scientists, and contractors who collaborated on the project. The description of this collaborative process is as central to the theme of this book as the building's many design innovations and energy-saving features. Richlyillustrated with professional photographs and architectural drawings, Audubon House is both a guidepost for environmentally sound construction and an inspiring chronicle of hope for all environmentally concerned citizens.