Integrating Natural Ventilation within an optimization process of energy performance

Decisions made in the early stage of the design process can have huge impacts on the future performance of a building. The implementation of natural ventilation strategies should occur early in the design stages and it should be embedded into a multi-criteria optimization process in order to achieve low energy performance and indoor comfort.Sustainable Graduation ThesisBuilding TechnologyArchitecture and The Built Environmen

Application of Surrogate Models for Building Envelope Design Exploration and Optimization

Building performance simulations are usually timeconsuming. They may account for the major portion of time spent in Computational Design Optimization (CDO), for instance, annual hourly daylight and energy simulations. In this case, the optimization may become less efficient or even infeasible within a limited time frame of real-world projects, due to the computationally expensive simulations. To handle the problem, this research aims to investigate the potentials of surrogate models (i.e. Response SurfaceMethodology - RSM) to be used in the building envelope design exploration and optimization that consider visual and energy performance. Specifically, the work investigates how, and to what extent, 1) problem scales may affect the application of RSM, and 2) different ways of using RSM may affect the quality of Pareto Front approximations. Thus, a series of multi-objective optimization tests are carried out; preliminary discussion is made based on the current results.Design Informatic

Simulating natural ventilation in large sports buildings: Prediction of temperature and airflow patterns in the early design stages

In large sport’s buildings, a big part of energy can be saved by providing natural instead of mechanical ventilation. However, additional challenges arise while controlling airflow and temperatures in different zones. These measureshighly depend on the shape, construction and ventilation openings, which are mostly decided in the early design stages. Computational optimization can support these early stages of design, but needs to be performed in efficient ways. In this respect, the project proposes rapid assessment of temperature and airflow patterns using customized Grasshopper components, which would be able to evaluate a given model using CONTAM and EnergyPlus software assimulation engine. The proposed method integrates these simulations within an environment, which is familiar to architects and is largely used for parameterization of design in its early stages. A case study (Jiangmen Sports Center, Jiangmen, China) is used to test the developed process for a large indoor sports hall.Design Informatic

Computational Design for Sport Building

The design of sport buildings has great impact on top-sport as well as on recreational sport-activities. It implies challenging tasks in meeting the performance-requirements. This includes the control of factors like daylight/lighting, air flow, thermal conditions, just to name a few. Such factors impact the performance of athletes and are hard to control in large sport halls; their control is even harder when the public/audience is located within the halls and require different climate conditions. While mechanical installations are often needed during competitions in order to guarantee constant conditions, relaying on mechanical installations during the daily and recreational use of the venues challenges their medium/long term sustainability. Computational form finding approaches can favour the achievement of high-performing and sustainable sport buildings. In this light, the paper tackles the use of Multi-objective and Multidisciplinary design optimization. The paper presents the concept of Multi-objective Multidisciplinary design optimization techniques to support trade-off decisions between multiple conflicting design objectives and interdisciplinary design methodology, during the conceptual design of sport buildings. The proposed method is based on parametric modelling, performance simulation tools and algorithms for computational optimization, for which the paper tackles three specific aspects. First of all, due to the complexity of large sport buildings, the formulation of the optimization and the screening of the related design variables is crucial in order to obtain a meaningful design space, which helps reducing unnecessary computational burden. Secondly, assessing performance based on measurements and analyses is crucial and can be supported by performance simulations tools; however effectively integrating performance simulations tools in the early phase of the design requires new tools. In this light, a customized computational process for the rapid assessment of temperature and airflow patterns is presented. Thirdly, the process requires the combination of design optimization and design exploration, while searching for well-performing solutions. The importance of design exploration is emphasized also for sub-optimal solutions. In order to facilitate the design exploration, the combination of optimization algorithms, multi-variate analysis algorithms and options for exploring design solutions via an interactive dashboard connected to a database are presented. To exemplify the method, specific case studies are developed as collaboration between Delft university of Technology and South China university of Technology.Design InformaticsEnvironmental Technology and Desig

Supporting Exploration of Design Alternatives using Multivariate Analysis Algorithms

Parametric modelling allows quick generation of a large number of design alternatives. Ultimately, it can be combined with optimization algorithms for obtaining optimal performance-driven design. However, setup of design space for optimization is a very complex task requiring designer’s a priori knowledge and experience. Therefore, this paper focuses on the process that happens before the optimization. It proposes to use multivariate analysis algorithms for exploring and understanding the relations between various design parameters, after sampling the design space. Additionally, portrayal of geometry isintroduced as an extension of conventional visualization methods, which accounts for evaluation of ill-defined design criteria by using designer’s expertise. The proposed method is computationally efficient and integrated into an environment familiar to architects. It relies on multivariate analysis algorithms together with database querying capabilities and an interactive dashboard developed for geometry portrayal.Design Informatic