INTEGRATION OF DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGIES

Air-conditioning, the powerful indoor-climate control system, is becoming widespread throughout theworld. As the dissemination accelerates, building design itself is changing drastically, and buildings arebeing designed to adapt to air-conditioning. This kind of change can be regarded as an evolution ofbuilding design; on the other hand, energy consumption in buildings has been increasing drastically.Today, more than one third of the global warming gas emissions in Japan are considered to come fromthe building sector. Consequently, energy conservation in buildings, including air conditioning is oneof major issues which need to be dealt with in order to achieve a sustainable society. Renewableenergy is a clean energy resource and also a resource to create new architectural design.