Developing better outputs from building thermal simulation tools to improve decision making in the design of low energy buildings

Thermal simulation tools are an essential element in the design of low energy / low carbon buildings. However, they have made little impact on the building design community, despite legislation and industrial and technological development requiring more performance oriented and energy efficient buildings. Although this is a multi-faceted challenge, the research methods used to investigate and address it tend to lack the necessary richness and interdisciplinarity.

Current outputs from simulation tools tend to be unrelated to concepts that are meaningful to the building designer and incompatible with his/her constructivist / experimental / 'learning by doing' way of approaching problem-solving. Developers are rarely provided with adequate information about how simulation results can be used to inform design decisions. Consequently, responses to the problem tend to be interpretations of what the simulation community assumes the building designer needs. These responses tend to be based on research methods that are ineffective in matching needs with their appropriate solutions. Research methods such as interviews, structured on-line surveys, reports of specific case studies and observations from working in collaboration with building designers simply describe the problem without showing how it can be solved.

Even though much has been achieved in improving input interfaces and facilitating modelling in the early design stages (connecting SketchUp with EnergyPlus via OpenStudio, the set up of AutoDesk Project Vasari, etc.), there is still much to be done about the content and format of building thermal simulation results for them to be effectively used in design decision making. The displays of time-series graphs and tables with temperatures and loads connected to surfaces and volumes are meaningless for building designers to use. Designers need results that effectively connect these temperatures and loads with the building elements they are manipulating.

This research proposes to focus on the gap that exists between the output information from simulation tools and what is actually needed for building designers to undertake informed design decisions when designing energy-efficient low carbon buildings - the gap that prevents simulation tools from being better integrated throughout the building design process. Hence, it aims to generate procedures to produce post-processed information and data representation systems that are meaningful to building designers. These procedures and outputs will be illustrated by a series of tested and validated examples developed through interdisciplinary collaboration. As suggested, proper collaboration between building design researchers and building simulation software researchers is essential to acknowledge and brings together the different ways these two disciplines interpret and manipulate building thermal physics. Moreover, the approach creates opportunities for a different research method to be explored. The method consists in inviting the building designer to propose what he/she thinks would be useful building physics information to support his/her design decisions when presented with a design task specifically tailored to facilitate the extraction of this information. Propositions include parameters, indices, diagrammatic and multimodal ways of representing results as well as possibilities of undertaking design changes. This method, not used before in this research area, aims to ensure that simulation tools will be consonant with the way of thinking and modus operandi of the designer, in ways that will mitigate current resistance to incorporating simulation results in design decision making.

Relevance to non-academic beneficiaries:
The direct beneficiaries of this research outside the academic environment will be building simulation software developers, building consultants and building designers. These key players of the building industry need to be more effectively connected if the production of next generation of energy-efficient low carbon buildings is to be achieved in the UK, the EU and worldwide.

Simulation software developers will have a set of procedures on how to produce post-processed information and data representation systems that are meaningful to building designers, illustrated by tested and validated mock ups. They might also have some examples of the implementation of these mock ups in thermal simulation research tools, if the collaborators converted already some of the 'recipes' into new software features. As many of these software developers are based in the UK, (Design Builder, TAS, IES, to cite a few) the outcomes of this research will directly benefit this specific niche of the British software industry.

Once these new set of outputs and representation systems are implemented, building designers will start having tools that provide parameters, indices, diagrammatic and multimodal ways of representing results as well as possibilities of undertaking design changes that are coherent with their 'modus operandi'. As the only way thermal performance can be predicted is through building simulation, it is essential that these tools are available for these professionals to use them since the early design stages, when design decision have a big impact in energy demand reduction. This will also be of use to building design consultants whose collaboration with building designers will be facilitated once tools that provide results more connected to building designers' needs are in place. The benefits to the community of building designers and consultants will be anticipated throughout the development of this project by involving some of these professionals in testing the usefulness of the aforementioned multimodal mock ups.

The ultimate goal of the research is to develop tools that will better inform design decision making for low energy buildings, and so, it can be argued, that the wider beneficiaries of the research will be clients, building occupants and society. Better decision making should lead to better energy performance, with associated reductions in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

Dissemination strategies:
Outcomes of the project will be posted on the website of project collaborators (NREL and ESRU) and in the WSA - Cardiff University website. Results will be communicated to software developers in software research user's lists (Energy Plus yahoo groups, ESP-r list, BLDGSim list) and in the IBPSA 2013 conference. Building physicists / simulationists are going to get information about the project outcomes through these same dissemination mechanisms and building designers will be directed to the aforementioned websites through the eCAADe list server, ACADIA mailing list, AECB forum, AIA Facebook & LinkedIn groups, etc. However, as user engagement is an integral part of the project and a large portion of WP 4, information will be disseminated to designers and building consultants also before the completion of the research. This will happen through an on-line survey, posted on the web lists, and a workshop state purpose, using the host institution existing infra-structure - CRiBE. Both environments of user engagement are also aimed at collecting data to test the usefulness of the research outcomes among a wider community of designers and consultants.