That the energy-saving building functions properly, a suitable plot of land must be found for him. The best one will be this one, on which it will be possible to build a south-oriented house, but do not worry about deviations from this direction reaching several degrees. Okay, if the width of the plot would allow such a design of the building, to provide southern light to all living areas.

The building should be so marked out, to minimize the length of the walls, covering the desired surface, but at the same time expose as much of the facade to the south as possible.

Part of the cubature, thermally separated from the outside, should be as compact as possible, not only because, that each breakdown of the wall is a potential site of a thermal bridge, but also for reasons’ economic; each square meter of insulation for such a building costs money, so you should save on the surface, which needs to be insulated! It doesn't mean that, that each of these houses must resemble a cube!

The point is, that the thermally separated cubic capacity is as compact as possible. The degree of compactness of an architectural body is expressed by the A / V ratio, that is the ratio of the external surface of the external partitions to the heated volume. The smaller this coefficient is, the better. It is good for single-family houses when it is on a level 0,8-1. For comparison: in high-rise buildings it is approx 0,3, for single-family one-story buildings – about 1,2. The southern façade in the concept of Passive and Energy-Saving Houses is actually an autonomous system, whose job is, on the one hand, providing shade in the summer, on the other hand, allowing the maximum amount of sunlight into the building during the winter months, depending on seasonal needs. The fulfillment of these two seemingly contradictory postulates, it brings with it several design problems: you have to take care of the proper fixation, for example, shading elements, without constructing thermal bridges, also problematic is fixing any elements to the wall with a thick layer of insulation. Apart from glazing, shading and insulation system, solar collectors appear on the roof, or photovoltaic batteries.