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‘Sustaining our Future by Rebuilding Our Past’ – The title of the presentation given by ASHRAE President Gordon Holness, and the highlight of the recent annual ASHRAE Presidential event in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Westminster, London. This was a joint meeting with CIBSE, ASHRAE Group and the IMechE CBSD.

The current ASHRAE President firmly believes that energy efficiency in existing buildings is the key to a truly sustainable future… and with existing buildings being responsible for 40% of primary energy consumption in the US, you can see why. 

One of the most fascinating things about this presentation was the ability of Gordon Holness to produce detailed facts & figures at will. He has clearly been preaching the role of the existing buildings and their impact on our environment for quite some time now… Kudos!

Personally I believe to achieve an energy efficient existing building; we must first understand its complexity. I also believe that along the critical path to achieving an energy efficient existing building, we must first encounter its ‘virtual building’. Once calibrated, the virtual building with BIM will be the key to the design, redesign or retrofit. The existing building landscape as I see it is as below.

Bottom line: In this economic climate, achieving an energy efficient existing building can make all the difference to maintaining commercial survival or increased financial prosperity.

By the way, it is said that 75 – 80% of all buildings that will exist in 2030, exist today! I wonder how much of an issue carbon tax will be in 2030!

Liam

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Tags:BIM, Building, climate, Engineers, Environment, Sustainability

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

Check out this great round-up of sustainable analysis tools exhibited at AIA by Lachmi Khemlani, founder and editor of AECbytes www.aecbytes.com/feature/2009/AIA2009_EnergyApps.html.

It includes our new VE-Gaia tool which we previewed there… “IES, the leading vendor in the performance analysis field, introduced a new application, VE-Gaia, to add to its already substantial product repertoire.”

However, it was her comments in the conclusion that really struck a chord with me. It is very encouraging to have finally reached a point where the importance of analysis tools and optimisation of building performance in sustainable design is becoming widely recognised. Enabling this ease of use and access to analysis tools is at the very center of our entire ethos. These are very exciting times for us!

“The increase in the number of analysis tools is a testament to the increasing importance of sustainable design in architecture and the need to optimize building performance. Unlike in the past, when performance analysis was primarily the purview of energy experts, academics, and research institutions, they are now becoming a part of the mainstream architectural toolset, with interfaces that non-technical people can also easily use and understand. Of course, the maxim of “garbage in, garbage out” very much holds true for sustainable design tools as well, and it is easy to be seduced by the colorful diagrams and charts and omit to question the veracity of the input and the accuracy of the output. It’s terrific that we have finally reached the point where the input of building geometry to the analysis tool directly from a BIM application has become a commonplace feature—but we have to keep in mind that geometry is only one of the inputs, and that an accurate analysis depends upon a whole host of other input data that has to be specified correctly as well. It is here that the experiences and insights of an energy expert come in and play a critical role in the design of sustainable buildings. Thus, while it is great to have the tools with their ever-increasing capabilities, it is important to not forget the human element that is ultimately needed for the creation of successful sustainable architecture.”

Lachmi has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, specialising in intelligent building modelling; she both consults and writes on AEC technology.  Read the full article and sign up to her newsletters at www.aecbytes.com/feature/2009/AIA2009_EnergyApps.html.

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Tags:AIA, BIM, building energy analysis, building information modelling, building performance, energy analysis, energy modelling, Green Building, performance analysis, Sustainable design, VE-Gaia

gbXML.org has formed a new Green Building XML (gbXML) Advisory Board which is comprised of 11 member companies, including IES.

The independent board is comprised of eleven (11) member companies that all have an interest in maintaining the gbXML schema as an open standard. The schema is the mostly widely used metadata format for transferring intelligent building information to facilitate thermal, energy, carbon, and water analyses associated with buildings.

The first meeting of the gbXML Advisory Board was held on April 21, 2009. The following companies were represented: AiRNAB, Autodesk, Bentley, Cadsoft Corporation, Carmel Software, EDSL, Greenspace Research, HVAC Solution, Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), Trane, and Wrightsoft.

Click here to read the full gbXML.org press release.

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Tags:BIM, building energy analysis, building information modelling, gbXML, Green Building, green building XML