An international living lab to bridge designed and actual performance of houses of next generation

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Improving the energy efficiency of buildings is essential to the sustainable development of human society. Numerous new design concepts (i.e., Passive House designs) and building technologies (e.g., cold climate heat pumps) have been proposed and implemented toward achieving this goal. However, each building is a complex system. Many of the concepts and technologies are only tested in laboratories; they may work well individually but haven't been verified in the context of real buildings, alongside other building components. In developing (e.g., design and verification) new concepts and technologies, building performance simulation plays a critical role. Based on past experience, the predicted energy performance of whole buildings that use new concepts and technologies often shows a significant discrepancy from the actual values. To verify the new concepts and technologies and to improve simulation accuracy, a living lab is being created. Eight innovative energy-efficient houses designed by different countries will be constructed on a German university campus and occupied by regular users. These houses are equipped with novel design and operation concepts, and use building technologies that are fresh to the building markets. Their actual performance will be accurately and comprehensively monitored over several years, and the monitored data will be compared with simulated data during the design process. The project will investigate the gaps between the designed/simulated and actual performance and will develop guidelines for future building designs and performance simulations.