Region-Responsive Design: Cost-Effective Solutions for Resilience and Comfort

The trend toward increasingly severe weather-related events brings to light some challenges facing the entire home-building industry. From wildfires to tornadoes, hurricanes, increasingly heavy rains, heat and drought, there is a greater pressure to meet increasing energy efficiency standards, and provide more comfort in our rapidly changing environment.

Region-responsive design is a method in which builders design homes to be more resilient and responsive to their region-specific climatic setting. It's a concept that is gaining recognition for producing structures that are more resilient, and homes that can meet that challenge can have lower operating and ownership costs, which will lead to greater value.

Informed design decisions, site planning and proper selection of materials, along with tried-and-true passive solar design and construction strategies can mitigate the climate impacts and provide a cost-effective, energy-efficient home. The key starting point is recognizing those climate conditions that can be mitigated and capitalizing on the conditions that will contribute to a safe, comfortable and healthy home.

The building industry will be confronted with increasing challenges from climate-related events. The basis for every region-responsive design is a simple, well-designed and constructed building envelope, which will maximize the passive benefits. 

Passive solar design and natural ventilation are design strategies that use the specific attributes and orientation of a site. Some design choices that adhere to this strategy include:

• Proper placement of windows and skylights to provide natural passive ventilation, improving health and comfort during the shoulder months without the aid of mechanical air-conditioning and heating systems;
• East- and south-facing windows to maximize energy gain when needed for heating and enhance healthy natural lighting;
• Shading of windows and doors utilizing sensible roof overhangs, awnings and well-placed vegetation to mitigate unwanted solar heat gain in cooling dominated climates and seasons;
• Strategic placement of non-living spaces such as garages, hallways and laundry rooms to provide buffers from unwanted chilly winter winds or intense summer solar heat gain.

Utilizing renewable energy systems for electrification, such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines, will not by themselves achieve the goals of substantial fossil fuel reduction and the associated atmospheric damage. Region-responsive design provides cost-effective strategies to meet these challenges, and provides greater health, comfort and increased value to your product.

The Sustainability and Green Building Subcommittee and NAHB staff have produced a number of resources to help educate and guide builders on building more efficient homes. See more on nahb.org.