## 1 Introduction
### Previous Studies
Through effective use of the surrounding environment of a building, the transformation of some components of the building can make it more efficient to use naturally generated renewable energy, which is the main means for passive energy saving ([PERSON] et al., 2019). For example, the heat transfer rate of the outer wall of a building can be improved by changing the wall material or wall structure ([PERSON] et al., 2019). The thermal comfort and ventilation efficiency of a building interior can be improved by using the surrounding environment of the building ([PERSON] et al., 2019). In one study, a glass roof was used to increase the heat storage of a courtyard during winter ([PERSON] et al., 2019). Aiming to provide a passive design based on the insulation of a building's exterior wall, [PERSON] et al. (2019) studied a novel wall design that included a phase change material (PCM) layer between two layers of a dynamic insulation material and system (DIMS). In all of the climates and wall orientations studied and analyzed, compared with walls integrated with only DIMS or PCM alone, the walls integrated with PCM-DIMS had higher energy-saving potential. Depending on the climate, a wall integrated with PCM-DIMS could reduce the annual heat gain by 15-72%, and the annual heat loss by 7-38%. [PERSON] et al. (2019) used the \"Designer's Simulation Toolkit\" energy simulation software to analyze the impacts of the material type and thickness of the external wall insulation layer on building energy consumption in the analysis of a life cycle cost. The economic costs of different insulating materials were studied based on modeling. The results showed that after adding thermal insulation materials to the building envelope, the impact on the cooling load of the building within one year was small, but the impact on the heating load was significant. In the original case, the heating load was reduced by 21.52%, accounting for 3.78% of the total load. [PERSON] et al. (2019) proposed a new concept called exhaust air insulation (EAI). The main components of the EAI wall were porous materials providing ventilation performance through a ventilation cavity and external enclosure structure. The research results showed that when EAI was used, compared with brick walls, the total heat increase in the EAI walls in summer was reduced by 84.7%; compared with external insulation walls, it was reduced by 67%. The heat storage performance of the wall was greatly reduced by using a thick porous layer and increasing the wind speed. When the wind speed was 0.003 m/s and the thickness of the porous layer was 50 mm, the heat flux of the indoor equipment was almost zero ([PERSON] et al., 2019). To explore cost reductions of the exterior wall of the building and reduce the energy consumption, the best thermal insulation materials of different thicknesses were set for the walls, and space was set in the walls to introduce external air into the walls. The results showed that compared with ordinary walls, the energy consumption was reduced by 65-77% under the influences of air gaps with thicknesses of 2, 4, and 6 cm and identified the optimal thicknesses of different insulating materials. In terms of the rational use of the surrounding environment for passive energy-saving in buildings, [PERSON] et al. [27] proposed a new energy-saving design scheme based on using the evaporation of a water system and a glass roof to passively cool and heat courtyard buildings in the Jiangnan region of China. They also improved the lighting capacity of the building and reduced the energy consumption of the lighting. After the design was combined with air conditioners, the total annual energy consumption for one year was 19,528.88 kWh, a saving of 5839.57 kWh (23%) relative to the original case. The design functions for passive solar buildings were proposed by [PERSON] et al. [33], including changing the building layout, transforming the shading efficiency of the windows, and using solar heating to generate indoor cross-ventilation.