The study and design of a home also involves analyzing its proper orientation, both in terms of shape and room layout. Choosing a home’s orientation is one of the most important aspects of design, as it determines the direction the building should face to maximize solar energy.
One factor that influences a home’s exposure is its location: if you live in a cold climate, such as northern Italy, it’s important to orient the home to maximize sunlight. It’s therefore advisable to position the main rooms southward, while the utility rooms northward. This means that the majority of the building should be aligned east-west. Conversely, if you live in a hot, dry climate, the home should be oriented to the local winds to maximize natural ventilation.
Historical notes on the orientation of the house
Throughout the history of architectural design, many studies have been conducted on orientation. The first were the Greeks and Romans, who applied the concepts of solar urban planning when choosing a site for new residential areas. The so-called heliothermal axis was first proposed in 1920 by the Frenchmen Rey and Pidoux for the city of Paris as an orientation axis for a vertical plane that receives the same heliothermal value on both north and south faces throughout the year. About twenty years later, Vinaccia criticized this typology, replacing it and proposing the equisolar axis, with a northeast and southwest inclination. This solution was born with the aim of equalizing the thermal effect for four exposures, rather than two as in the previous case.
How to arrange the rooms of a house for the right exposure to the sun
From a bioclimatic perspective, in Italy, the tendency is increasingly to follow an east-west orientation: that is, as previously mentioned, with the main facades facing south and north. Depending on sun exposure and temperatures at the various cardinal points, the layout of the rooms within the home also follows a specific logic.
Service areas that require less light, such as storage rooms, utility rooms, garages, laundries, and small bathrooms, should be located to the north. It’s important to remember that these rooms, where less light and heat reach them, can be prone to humidity and mold; for this reason, frequent ventilation is recommended.
The east, where rooms receive the first rays of the sun, is the optimal solution for bedrooms. These will receive the first light in winter, and in summer, being shaded in the afternoon, they will tend to overheat as little as possible.
The south side of the house is the most privileged, as it receives direct and optimal lighting throughout the day in winter. During the summer, however, since it is not as high, it does not directly enter the rooms and does not overheat them. This makes the south-facing space ideal for kitchens, living rooms, and any open spaces such as terraces and balconies.
The last cardinal point is the west, which receives the sun’s rays in summer, making it warmer and more susceptible to overheating. Suitable rooms for this area of the house include either the bedrooms or the kitchen. The important thing is to always consider shading solutions to protect the interior of the home from the light. Suitable solutions include sunshades, external awnings, or pergolas.
Arranging the rooms of the house along this axis brings significant energy benefits to your home: it allows you to save on both heating costs during the winter and on artificial lighting.
In summary, we can say that windows facing:
Southeast and southwest receive large amounts of light in both summer and winter, with sunrays reflecting almost horizontally, filtering deep into the room;
East and west receive horizontal sunrays during the equinox, gradually straightening until the summer solstice;
North, on the other hand, receive little light only during the summer;
South receive horizontal sunrays in winter and almost vertical rays in summer;
Northeast and north windows receive no sunlight during the winter, but are sunny in spring and autumn. During the summer, the sun shines perpendicularly through the windows.