1. Built as a system

A recent approach

Considering buildings as something other than objects is a recent development. It is the result of the growing importance of energy issues. Indeed, from this point of view, the building appears closer to a thermodynamic machine than a simple mass of materials. This trend was even accentuated when the observation of recent constructions showed that actual consumption levels did not correspond to those that had governed their definition.

The initial response was that users were not "playing the game", and were misusing the instrument they had taken possession of. Since then, this position has been modified. Everyone agrees that there is a very strong correlation between user behavior and the thing built. In a slightly different form, let's say that a building must take into account as closely as possible...