A review of residential building archetypes and their applications to study building energy consumption

In developing economies, residential energy consumption patterns have rapidly transformed with better energy access and service quality. Unlike other building types, residential buildings are more complex due to wide variations in their consumption patterns influenced by various factors. Researchers have characterised residential building stock based on distinct building archetypes. This paper presents a comprehensive review of relevant published research focusing on the classification of residential buildings based on their energy consumption. This review also focuses on residential archetype studies in the context of building science. The methodologies adopted by different researchers to characterise the energy use of residential building stock using an archetypal approach at different spatial scales (building to city scale and local to national scale) have been critically reviewed in this study. The paper will provide the researchers with a holistic understanding of the current directions and magnitude of ongoing research in this domain.