Design feasibility of load-bearing masonry building for energy-efficient construction

With increasing urbanisation in developing countries such as India, designing low-cost and energy-efficient housing is an urgent requirement. Adoption of sustainable construction methods and materials assist in reducing the environmental impact and cost of these constructions. This paper compares the design feasibility of a single-storey load-bearing masonry building and a reinforced-concrete-framed structure for energy-efficient constructions. A systematic methodology is applied for residential buildings that come under the composite climate zone. Given energy-efficient design, two different building typologies, one a load-bearing structure with filler slab and the other a conventional reinforced-concrete-framed structure, have been analysed by a computational approach. With due consideration for structural stability, embodied energy, peak cooling load and the cost of construction were evaluated and compared. The load-bearing structure designed with filler slab resulted in saving costs and embodied and operational energy demand by 5%, 32% and 25%, respectively, as compared with the traditional reinforced-concrete-framed structure.