If Whole Building Analysis, Then Sustainable Design Will Follow |
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By Lauren Browne, ConnectPress Editor
Whole building analysis is something that may seem rudimentary for CAD users, but none the less is extremely important to efficient and good design. Something that is more popular than ever currently is the concept of sustainable design. With the Obama administration pushing for more alternative energy and green practices in general, building green is a trend that is here to stay. Melding whole building analysis and sustainable design has thus become an increasingly important aspect of the design process.
 Autodesk Autodesk Ecotect Analysis displays the sun’s position and path relative to the model so users can view how sunlight enters and moves around within a space.
“I think they really need to work together because whole building analysis is the most effective way to create a sustainable design,” said Product Specification & Building Information Modeling (BIM) Integration Consultant Robert S. Weygant, CSI, CDT, SCIP. As far as the two concepts’ relationship, it supports an if, then statement: If whole building analysis is done and eco-friendly choices are made, then sustainable design happens naturally. Simply by doing whole building analysis, and then choosing eco-friendly options architects and designers are implementing sustainable design practices.
Defining sustainable design is something that is hard to do though because it is difficult to measure what makes something sustainable, said Paul Torcellini, group manager for commercial buildings research at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). “We prefer to set energy goals or have energy targets that the owner and the design team embrace. The stakeholders have to decide what sustainable means to them, and once you define that, you can bring it to life, it can be quantifiable and the design and engineering team can figure out how to meet those goals,” said Torcellini.
Weygant sees two building industry trends: the increased use of BIM and the popularity of sustainable design. He also said that BIM allows designers to complete whole building analysis on the fly. “Having the information like U-factors and solar heat gain built of windows directly in the BIM model, allows you to swap out the various windows or wall components really easily and then recheck the model to see if it’s going to provide the energy performance they’re looking for.”
Regarding the popularity of sustainable design, that is shown in Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) like Autodesk’s and Bentley’s clear display of support for software tools to help its Autodesk Revit and Bentley MicroStation users design more sustainably. “The more tools that are available to streamline the sustainable design process, the more effective the design is going to become,” said Weygant. Autodesk now offers its customers HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) mechanical engineering software developed by Carmel Software to ensure that through the analysis of mechanical design, sustainable design is achieved. Also, Revit users can use Green Building Studio, a whole building energy analysis software to be used in the design process, and Ecotect for sustainability analysis. Bentley offers Tas Simulator for building modeling and simulation, and predicts things like energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Another offer is Hevacomp, which helps users create energy efficient designs and simulate them, and providess energy performance certification tools based off the EnergyPlus analysis engine. Bentley also offers Haestad Methods Solutions for hydrologic and hydraulics systems design, analysis and management, which can be used to reduce water resources.
 Bentley Systems Building Shadow Analysis using Hevacomp Software
ISVs are not the only ones with whole-building analysis tools. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsors a variety of building energy software tools, some of which are even free. EnergyPlus, a free simulation program reads and writes text files, models heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating and water use. “Energy Plus is thinking to the future about what technologies are coming down the pike, so we can analyze buildings of the future. It’s flexible and has the ability to think about advanced concepts like it allows for flexibility in heating and cooling systems, there are renewable options and it can look at how water flows in a building,” said Torcellini. Additionally DOE sponsors Building Design Advisor, a free program for building decision makers to help with energy-related information, and Energy-10, a simulation and analysis program that is specifically for small commercial and residential buildings and offers daylighting, passive solar heating and energy cooling strategies in the most cost-effective manner. There is also SPARK, in which whole building analysis is done for modeling complex building envelopes and mechanical systems. Torcellini would like to see more design teams “getting all the players on the same page, heading towards the same goal and using some sort of energy simulation so they can come up with the best solutions. We’d like to see this transformation happen. The tools can better engineer the project.”
When to implement whole building analysis has an easy rule. “The earlier the better, and then having those analysis tools throughout the design process is good as well. One method that never works is completing the design and deciding to run building analysis at the last minute,” said Torcellini. Also, knowing the boundaries of too much analysis and not enough analysis are important. According to Torcellini, “there’s a balance between using the tool, the results of that (tool) and good intuition, with the architectural creative liberty to get these things to all to work together.”
No matter how you look at it, whole building analysis warrants elements of sustainable design. Weygant said it best with “as far as sustainable design, you need to be able to perform whole building analysis in order to really truly to provide a sustainable design, because you need to qualify what makes a building sustainable by looking at the building as a whole instead of sum of its parts.”
To see the U.S. DOE’s complete list of the building analysis tools visit http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/tools_directory/alpha_list.cfm.
Lauren Browne is a writer and editor for ConnectPress Ltd. in Santa Fe, NM. She received her BA in English and a minor in journalism from Northern Arizona University.
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| Published 2009-07-13 00:00:00 |
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