Maremat & Me'mari-e Iran

The growing process of building design and construction, regardless of reducing sources of energy,
is one of the threats to the environment and human life. Therefore it is necessary that design
strategies in new buildings be orientated to the aim of reducing energy consumption and environmental
pollution. Earth sheltering is a passive idea that reduces building energy consumption
and ensures its thermal comfort to a great deal. Taking shelter in the earth and advantage from its
thermal properties is one of the tricks that even was used in some climates in the past. This study
investigates the energy efficiency of Earth-sheltered building with regard to the interaction of different
building uses in the city of Yazd. The thermal simulation software (EnergyPlus) was applied
to accomplish this aim, following the study of the basic requirements of a specific research on
this subject. Regarding the results, increasing in the depth of penetration in the soil, increases the
percentage of savings compared to aboveground conventional buildings. In this condition, with
increase in the depth of building position, residential use has the most and educational use has the
lowest correlation with energy consumption. And also the optimum depth for each building use is
assessed at a different rate. In this situation, residential use has 69% and religious, administrative
and educational uses respectively have 61, 60 and 54 percent energy savings.