Building with the site

Building with the site is equivalent to a synthetic approach that will influence the choice of a building's layout, orientation, architectural form, volume, layout and depth of rooms, location of windows and so on. This approach is similar to a bioclimatic approach, with the aim of reconciling winter comfort, summer comfort, energy savings, natural lighting, acoustics and health. It goes beyond simply taking solar gain into account, and encourages the project manager to seek the best compromise, taking all these objectives into account.

This bioclimatic approach encourages the design of passive buildings, so as to keep heating and cooling requirements to a minimum. The options for contributing to passive architecture are decided at the design stage, when most of the environmental quality of a project is decided. Then, in the APS and APD phases, the broad outlines of the project are refined by means of optimization calculations, material comparisons, dimensioning of glazed bays, choice of protection for summer comfort...

To this end, an analysis of the site must be carried out beforehand, and then translated into a constraints/assets map of the plot. This enables a number of environmental requirements to be integrated into the program, to be analyzed and interpreted by the architect during the competition phase.