IES Blog

As an American spending time in Lucerne, Switzerland, I am thoroughly impressed with the level of environmental awareness in both the city of Lucerne and the country of Switzerland. There is a level of respect for the environment that can be seen in all levels of society, from the abundance of public transportation to the required recycling programs. As a city with approximately 75,000 residents, 19% of those being foreigners, the city works like a well-oiled machine. The residents that are here, old or young, rich or average, have no problem following the rules to keep their way of life.

And that is one of the biggest differences; regulation and enforcement. You do not have an option to recycle, it is required. If you choose it ignore this rule, be prepared to pay a huge fine as the trash collector will have no problem opening your trash to find out who the violator is. Speeding down the highway will also result in huge fines received in the mail, and the charges are based on income so they will impact even the richest members of society. Air quality monitors with digital displays notify the public of pollution levels in the air on the highway.

As for the city of Lucerne itself, they won the “European Energy Award - Gold” in November 2009 for their progressive climate policies. The award focuses on “enforcement-oriented climate policy in communities” which not only looks at the plans a community has, but also involves a local group of authorities, as well as an EEA consultant, to ensure that the EEA measures are being followed. Again, it not just the intention to do something good, but the enforcement and overseeing of the EEA plan that ensures the measures are strictly followed. This enforcement leads to real change.

Stay tuned for my next blog where we look at some of the innovative companies and sustainable initiatives in the beautiful city of Lucerne, Switzerland.

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Now a protest on smoking in LEED buildings was not quite the sight I expected to see as a rocked up for the first day of Greenbuild! I believe the protesters were referring in particular to the newly certified ARIA resort and casino in Las Vegas which allows smoking on the casino floor.

On closer inspection and investigation however, it appears that the casino itself was excluded from the LEED submission, which only covers the hotel resort tower and convention center.

“The USGBC already has awarded LEED Gold certification to ARIA’s hotel tower, convention center and theater; as well as Vdara Hotel. CityCenter’s remaining venues are poised to receive a combination of Silver and Gold LEED ratings.” (For full article click here)

But even if it had been included smoking could be allowed in designated areas with measures taken to avoid second-hand smoke in other areas according to EQ Prerequisite 2: Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control. See the blog and comments at Cooper Green Design for more detail.

I wonder if the protesters knew this or if it would make much difference to them? However, it does raise some interesting questions about what LEED should and can demand of facilities, and how boundaries are set. Though I believe the Minimum Program Requirements (MRP) in the latest version of LEED (2009) would now not allow this kind of exclusion.

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Tags:Greenbuild, LEED, Sustainability

The 8^th International Radiance Conference took place on the campus of Harvard University, in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA from October 21^st through the 23^rd, 2009. The event was hosted by Christoph Reinhart and Kera Lagios of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Two staff members from IES Boston attended the event, Michelle Farrell and Angela Chan. In total about 80 professionals and students attended.

Radiance was originally developed with the majority of support coming from the U.S. Department of Energy, with supplementary support from the Swiss Federal Government. One of the lead developers, Greg Ward of Anyhere Software, also attended. There was discussion around the improvements that will be available in Radiance 4.0, including a “new parallel computation facility in rvu (formerly rview), and tools for annual daylight simulations with complex fenestration systems”.

While Radiance has been around for many years, it was primarily used by experts familiar with its interface and coding. Some of the presentations focused on how the tool is being integrated with other modelling, and even parametric, software tools. Christoph Reinhart, Kera Lagios, and Jeff Niemasz of the Harvard Graduate School of Design developed a toolbar for Rhino that links it with Radiance and Daysim. Through the use of Grasshopper, key parameters of the design could be changed, and the Radiance/Daysim results respond accordingly, allowing for “the creation of animated building performance simulation.”

Other presentations, such as one by David Smith of Buro Happold, focused on the presentation of Radiance results. After giving a basic introduction to coding, Smith showed how he used Flash in combination with Radiance output to create deliverables such as “simple animations, mapping data to models, and interactive design aids”. The deliverables that he presented show the power of what reports can now contain, making the printed report or image collection seem almost archaic. A truly inspiring presentation that shows what is possible when it comes to reports when you add a little creativity.

A version of Radiance, RadianceIES, is contained within the IES Virtual Environment suite. By using Radiance as part of the IES Virtual Environment, One can use RadianceIES with LightPro or FlucsPro, also both modules in the Virtual Environment, to visualize and analyze electrical lighting schemes using VE’s extensive library of luminaires, or by importing your own photometric files. Furthermore, one can link Radiance to ApacheSIM to account for daylighting dimming strategies when running an annual energy simulation. It is this connection between the modules in the Virtual Environment that makes the IES’ software suite so powerful.

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One of the key benefits of IES VE tools is our collaboration with Autodesk, Google and Graphisoft which allows designers and architects to use their BIM/CAD model to start performing analysis at the very early design stage. It can simplify the process of recreating the model from scratch, as you would have had to do in the traditional way.

Through this, many architects are starting to realize that building performance analysis is not only for engineers, and that by working holistically from conceptual stage, the project can achieve much better efficiencies than when analysis is left till later phases of the project.

In traditional building performance modeling, the modeler uses information from drawings, photos, etc. to construct a model within simulation software from scratch. Misinterpreting the information from CAD to building performance model is common, and in some cases important geometry might be missing from the information provided or left out of the model by accident.

As BIM becomes increasingly popular in the architecture industry and more connections to analysis tools appear and strengthen, architects can start performing analysis on different design options, including climate understanding, building orientation, massing during conceptual stages, and as the design develops, analysis such as daylight assessment, water review, heating/cooling loads, renewable use, etc. IES has a direct plug-in for both Autodesk Revit and Google SketchUp, as well as direct connectivity to Graphisoft ArchiCAD.

One important thing to note is that there are some fundamental differences between an energy model and an architectural model used to generate construction documents. Schema’s such as gbXML (www.gbxml.org) are used to streamline the data flow between BIM platforms and analysis tools, so users should have an understanding of how this works and what will translate, and what will not. 

A model that is very heavy in details will affect the computation time of the simulation. One of the things I like to do whenever I start running simulation is to spend 15-30 minutes cleaning up any elements that are not necessary for energy analysis (of course doing a “Save As” on your existing model first). I know a lot of architects are probably saying if we have a direct plug-in, why do I want to waste all this time cleaning up the model? Isn’t that the reason why we want to use the plug-in?

Spending a little extra time cleaning up a model before running a simulation, will reduce the file size and run time; if you are doing a few simulations it’s definitely worth the time. The IES VE will still run the simulation if you don’t clean up the model, but it will go through every element within it trying to figure out what needs to be included and what doesn’t, which can take a lot of time. Plus, the more detail you have in the model, the more risk of inaccuracy during translation. If you want to understand more about model translation, visit our website for whitepapers on both SketchUp and Revit to IES: http://www.iesve.com/Learning/IES-Whitepapers

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Tags:Architects, BIM, daylighting, Engineers, gbXML, plug-in, plug-ins, reduce, Renewables, Revit, sketchup

The Boston Architectural College/Worcester Polytechnic Institute Advanced Studio Course Comes to an End

In a previous blog, I had written about a class that I was assistant teaching during the Spring 2009 semester, along with Andreas Savvides AIA, AICP of Boston Architectural College and Alan Quinn of Sasaki Associates, Inc., Masters and Bachelors of Architecture students have been teamed with, Worchester Polytechnic Institute, cost estimating students to evolve their creative designs into affordable, energy efficient structures.

Through the use of the VE-Ware, Revit plug-in, and the VE-Toolkits, students were able to explore their designs in a way they had not experienced before. Perhaps the most surprising thing to the students was how badly their buildings performed initially before making changes to the building envelope, heating and cooling system, orientation, etc., especially when compared again CBECS (Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey) data. Once students had successfully translated their Revit models to IES, the initial results were noted and became the starting point for a competition. The student who could make the greatest impact on their building energy consumption, looking at the variable of “design building energy use intensity”, would receive a year student license of IES’ full suite of software, as well as a write-up on the IES Blog.

Craig W. Herrmann, a student at Boston Architectural College in the Bachelor of Architecture program and a Project Coordinator at Jacobs Engineering, employed multiple strategies to reduce his building’s energy consumption. By incorporating roof overhangs, external shading devices, a very energy efficient building envelope, and the most appropriate heating and cooling system, Craig was not only able to win the contest, but was also able to cut the energy consumption almost in half. As you can see from Craig’s presentation, the resulting structure was both aesthetically appealing and thoughtful to its environmental impact.

You can view the full presentation here

In the next few years, courses that include energy modelling are becoming more and more prevalent at architectural colleges around the country. The Boston Architectural College pushes to stay at the forefront of this technological movement, and I will be back to teach more courses like this in the future.

However, I need to finish my own Master’s thesis first. Wish me luck!

Michelle

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Tags:AIA, Boston, Engineers, plug-in, plug-ins, reduce, Revit, VE-Toolkits, VE-Ware

 IPD: Downtown Sailing Advanced Studio Course

Who says engineers and architects don’t get along? In a class that I am assistant teaching this Spring semester, along with Andreas Savvides AIA, AICP of Boston Architectural College and Alan Quinn of Sasaki Associates, Inc., Masters and Bachelors of Architecture students have been teamed with Worchester Polytechnic Institute cost estimating students to evolve their creative designs into affordable, energy efficient structures. Through a grant from the American Institute of Architects, Len Charney, Head of the BAC Practice Department, was able to secure laptops that could be used by each individual student throughout the semester. Each laptop is loaded with the latest Autodesk Revit software, and of course, IES Virtual Environment and the IES Revit Plug-in.

The basis of the class is to take a project from a previous semester, a boathouse, and readapt it for the new site at Four Point Channel in downtown Boston. The site is minutes from the Boston IES office, and is actually on a plot of manmade land. As many may not know, Boston grew for years, expanding into the surrounding bodies of water through a gravel infill project. (For more information of this: http://www.iboston.org/rg/backbayImap_1890.htm ) By pulling out fill (dirt, gravel, etc) from the hills in Boston, and eventually from the surrounding areas, Boston increased its footprint exponentially. This new site is going to require student to rework their previous boathouse project in major ways. Some of the key differences at the new site include the height from the retention wall to the water (the previous site had a gradual slope down to the water) to the manmade context (the other site was vegetated) to the difference in look and size of the surrounding buildings. The result will be a completely different looking boathouse as students adapt it to the new site and urban context.

This class will depend on using BIM (Building Information Modelling) from the early design stages. Alan Quinn has taught the students how to use Revit Architecture 2009, and students, guided by me (Michelle Farrell of IES Boston), will be constantly run their models through IES as they change or adapt them to the new site conditions. Each design move will have impacts on the heating and cooling loads, total energy usage, and daylighting inside of the space. Student will be required to keep track of the effects of these changes, and then modify their final models to improve energy performance.
Please stay tuned for more updates from this class, including images from the student’s final projects in May!

Here are some images from the site visit:

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Tags:Architects, Boston Architectural College, Engineers, Environment

As an employee of IES who is looking at sustainability from the architecture and design point of view, I know how important it is to think of the energy consumption of a building before you finalize, or even start, a design. Thinking ahead to a green mechanical system is not something engineers are solely responsible for, nor is it something that can be achieved by adding a single solar panel. Green design is a holistic approach, viewing all aspects of the building as potential problems or solutions that could reduce the energy loads on the building. As a student as well as an employee, I am putting these ideas to use for a competition that my college will be involved in.

The 2009 Solar Decathlon takes place in Washington DC as a bi-annual event, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Twenty schools have been chosen to participate in this event. As a Masters of Architecture student of the Boston Architectural College, I am deeply involved with the project. Our architecture and interior design focused college partnered with engineering and policy students of Tufts University and entered the competition that will take place October 9-18, 2009. IES software is an invaluable tool for us to use throughout the design process.

IESVE has provided both time and resources for the Boston Architectural College/Tuft’s Team to analyze/gain real-time feedback on the design, and offers the team an advanced tool to tune their design to a point where it is ready to compete, and hopefully win this competition. This experience is teaching architects to work closely with the engineers throughout the design process by showing how important this is, instilling skills for the future. The team also has to work together to construct the design on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Please look for us in the future on our team website: http://www.teambostond.com/index.shtml
Keep up with the entire USDE 2009 Solar Decathlon at: http://www.solardecathlon.org

Hope to see you in 2009,

Michelle

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Tags:Boston Architectural College, Green Design, IES VE