Impact of the Surrounding Built Environment on Energy Consumption in Mixed-Use Building

Young-Eun Woo and Gi-Hyoug Cho
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Young-Eun Woo: School of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, 50 UNIST-gil, Ulju-gun, Ulsan 44919, Korea
Gi-Hyoug Cho: School of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, 50 UNIST-gil, Ulju-gun, Ulsan 44919, Korea

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: While a mixture of residential and non-residential uses in urban development has advantages in reducing transportation energy consumption and improving efficiency of land utilization, the patterns of energy consumption in mixed-use buildings are largely unknown. To understand associations between the built environment and energy consumption and to find effective strategies for energy saving, this study aims to examine how the gas and electricity energy consumption of mixed-use properties is influenced by the characteristics of the immediate surroundings of the building as well as by the building’s attributes. The sample for this study is 22,109 mixed-use buildings in Seoul, Korea and the main source of outcome is electricity and gas energy consumption data retrieved from the open system of building data in 2015 and 2016. The regression results showed that a higher proportion of non-residential uses in mixed-use buildings was positively associated with higher electricity consumption overall but that it reduced gas energy use during the winter. In particular, increased restaurant and service use significantly influenced electricity consumption in the buildings. With regard to surrounding built environment, higher impervious surfaces and dense development near the buildings increased the electricity consumption of the buildings but it reduced gas energy consumption. Our results imply that, through the mediating effects of UHIs, the built environment characteristics of immediate surroundings may have indirect effects on energy consumption in mixed-use buildings.

Keywords: mixed-use building; surrounding built environment; energy consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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