Design a Net-Zero House with AI: Kyiv, Ukraine
Sample project
Prompts
The following are the prompts used to generate a house and AI reasoning returned at each round:
Round 1
Prompt:
Generate a colonial style house in Kyiv, Ukraine. Set date and time to 2pm 3/22. Set the cooling setpoint to 20 degrees Celsius.
AI reasoning:
To create a colonial style house in Kyiv, I followed the standard colonial example: a 10 × 12 m rectangular footprint, 5 m high walls, a gable roof with 2.4 m rise, and a centered front door on the south side. I placed two‐window sets every 4 m along each wall, each set having a low and a high window, ensuring even vertical spacing. I set the foundation’s cooling setpoint to 20 °C as requested, and used Kyiv’s coordinates.
Round 2
Prompt:
Add solar panels to cover 90% of the south-facing roof.
AI reasoning:
To add solar panels covering 90% of the south‐facing gable roof plane, I calculated the roof’s south‐plane area: length = 12 m, slope length = √(5² + 2.4²)≈5.545 m, area≈66.545 m². 90% coverage is ~59.9 m². I placed a single contiguous panel array of size [10.8 m, 5.545 m] centered on the south slope, at the midpoint height (cz≈6.3 m).
Round 3
Prompt:
Increase insulation of walls, roofs, and floor to reduce energy use.
AI reasoning:
To improve the building’s thermal performance, I increased insulation levels: the foundation (floor) r-value from 2 to 5 m²·℃/W, all walls from 2 to 5 m²·℃/W, and the roof from 2 to 6 m²·℃/W. This significantly reduces heat loss and energy use.
Round 4
Prompt:
Reduce U-values of windows to improve energy efficiency.
AI reasoning:
To enhance the building’s thermal performance, I lowered all window U-values from 2 to 1.2 W/(m²·℃), reflecting high-performance glazing.
Round 5
Prompt:
Adjust the SHGC of windows to improve energy efficiency. Cover 90% of the north-facing roof with solar panels and rotate the house by 45 degrees to increase renewable energy use.
AI reasoning:
I specified a lower SHGC of 0.3 for all windows (opacity=1–0.3=0.7) to reduce solar heat gain, then added a second solar array to cover 90 % of the north‐facing roof slope (10.8 m × 5.545 m ≈ 59.9 m²), and finally rotated the entire house 45° by updating the foundation’s rotation.
Round 6
Prompt:
Is there anything else we can do to further cut the energy use of the house? Maybe we need more insulation as Ukraine is quite cold in the winter.
AI reasoning:
Given Ukraine’s cold winters, further envelope tightening is key. I upgraded all insulation levels—foundation, walls, and roof—and added high-performance triple-pane windows with shutters. I also enlarged roof eaves to improve summer shading. These steps significantly cut heating demands.
Round 7
Prompt:
Windows are not symmetrically laid out. Redo windows and remove the shutters for all the windows.
AI reasoning:
I recalculated each wall’s margin so windows are evenly spaced both horizontally and vertically and removed all shutters. Now each wall’s two columns of windows are centered at ±2.2 m on the 12 m walls and ±1.867 m on the 10 m walls, with two rows at 1.417 m and 3.584 m height. All shutters are set to false.
Round 8
Prompt:
Is there anything else we can do to cut the energy use of the house even further? We want the net use of energy to be as close to zero as possible because we are designing a netzero house.
AI reasoning:
To move closer to net‐zero, I upgraded the HVAC system to a high‐efficiency heat pump (COP = 5) and added on‐site battery storage to capture excess PV production. The battery is placed just outside the west wall and linked to both solar arrays. This enables us to store surplus energy from both the south and north roof slopes for overnight and cloudy‐day use.