Abstract
In this paper, a value-engineering based integrated design approach is presented to improve energy efficiency of residential buildings. The design approach is based on reducing construction costs from over sizing structural systems of the building to allow investing in energy efficiency measures. The integrated design utilizes optimized selection procedure to identify set of measures that can minimize life-cycle costs while maximizing energy consumption for the buildings without exceeding budget thresholds defined by the value engineering analysis. The integrated design approach is demonstrated and applied to design a prototypical villa in Kuwait considering both homeowner and government perspectives to optimize the selection of energy efficiency measures. The results indicate that significant reductions in construction costs can be achieved due to commonly practiced oversizing of the villa's structural systems. These cost reductions are more than sufficient to cover the incremental costs of implementing optimally identified energy efficiency measures with the benefits of lowering annual energy demand by 70% compared to the current design practices in Kuwait. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.