Passive house design in temperate continental climate for increasing indoor comfort conditions

In the last couple of years, we have witnessed dramatic changes in the fabric of our society, with great impact on cities, neighborhoods and living conditions. Therefore, the contemporary architectural discourse tries to shift its attention towards these social, cultural and climatic changes, while trying to better respond to the challenges that occur in our society at different levels. The present paper analyzes a project for an energy efficient single-family house that integrates into a heterogeneous urban context, with specific constraints pertaining to local regulations and climatic regional conditions. The chosen site is situated in a historical area of Iasi, Romania, aspect that must be taken into account when proposing the overall volumetric concept. The passive design strategies have also been implemented in order to achieve the nZEB status. Among other energy and cost efficient solutions we mention: use of renewable energies along with a very efficient constructive system for an airtight house configuration; natural cross ventilation strategies and maximizing the daylight factor for all indoor spaces. Simulations in DIALux provided very good values for daylight factor, an important aspect for minimizing the energy consumption for electricity, especially during winter. For increasing the overall indoor comfort hours during summer and winter, additional systems/features were proposed for direct solar intake, shading and increase of thermal mass.