With the right tools at their disposal, project teams can gain important insight into the performance of their buildings, even at the earliest stages of design. This insight can radically improve energy efficiency, reduce duplicative work, and save time and money. We use and develop advanced technologies to help teams discover these insights early on so they can design buildings with optimal performance.
The operation and construction of buildings account for almost half of the energy use in the United States. To meet global climate change targets, energy consumption of buildings in the long term must be reduced as well as carbon dioxide emissions. This article explores a theoretical building envelope that generates energy and produces water by... Read more »
This article describes the importance of the effect of heat flow and moisture on the building’s exterior enclosure. It provides a basic understanding of the concerns of why understanding heat flow and moisture is important to the design of exterior walls, its basic physics and traditional, yet obsolete solutions. It provides a technique for making... Read more »
The “Cell Wall” is the iconic feature of the Shanghai Nature Museum and the main design feature from the initial competition phase. It is comprised of three layers, each with its own unique geometrical pattern and organic form, organized in an elliptical cone shape envelope of the atrium. At the core is the main layer,... Read more »
Designing energy efficient buildings requires an understanding of the energy impact of design features and how they interact with each other during the design process. This article outlines how and when an energy analysis can be conducted including guidelines for what to expect in an energy modeling analysis and how to interpret and understand the results. Guidance is... Read more »
This article discusses relationships between building performance simulations and design decisions and how building performance predictions can improve the design outcomes. The first part of the article discusses why we need to quantify building performance and predict how a building as a whole or its components will function. Then, relationships between Building Information Modeling (BIM) and analysis software... Read more »
Using analytic data as a driver to control the geometry of BIM elements is currently a promising method for parametric creation of design elements such as sun shades, which respond to environmental constraints such as incident solar radiation or solar angles. This can be done qualitatively, but evaluating multiple options with many variables is time... Read more »
It is well known that occupant behaviour is a factor that affects a building’s energy performance. While a good deal of study and research has been done on residential energy use, less research has focused on the behaviour of commercial office occupants. This paper explores how occupant engagement, coupled with a web-based energy challenge, can... Read more »
The objective of this paper is to provide some insight into how HVAC systems are changing to meet the drive towards lower energy usage. The paper is primarily focusing on trends, observed by the author in designs which have been highlighted in research journals and project work. A case study is provided which highlights how... Read more »
This article presents North House, an interdisciplinary, inter-institutional design research project to develop a full-scale prototype of a net-positive energy solar powered residence optimized for cold climate applications and describes the project’s performance objectives that privileged environmentally responsive envelope design, the use of hybrid passive and active energy systems and inhabitant participation in managing the... Read more »
High-performance, energy-efficient buildings require a different design approach than conventional buildings. Building performance predictions, use of simulations and modeling, research-based and data-driven design process are the key elements in the design of high-performance buildings. This article discusses relationships between building performance simulations and design, as well as the role of building performance research in architectural... Read more »
The early stage of design is characterized by iteration of divergent phases in which design alternatives are generated and convergent phases in which alternatives are assessed and selected. It is during or at the end of these phases that decision-making occurs under considerable uncertainty. Therefore, the methods and tools applied during these phases should account... Read more »
