IES Blog

IES sat down with 16 architects, engineers and contractors at the Denver Revit Users Group last Thursday for a roundtable discussion. The result? Some great conversation about how best to utilize Building Information Modeling, a sustainable building analysis tool.

IES worked with Colorado-based Ambient Energy, a building performance and sustainable design consulting company, to showcase some of BIM’s more practical uses. The relatively new technology doesn’t just spit out data and geometric designs anymore. More and more often, we are seeing BIM taking on a different role. The spatial relationships and geographic information can help architects and engineers out in a big way; from daylight penetration to average temperature and wind direction, analysis software is an integral part of sustainable design.

An IES and Ambient Energy project at Colorado State University in 2011 proved the point. Faced with the challenge of designing a more efficient atrium for the school’s Engineering II building, Ambient Energy consultants used IES’ VE-Pro software to test and verify their various energy efficiency concepts. Daylight and mixed mode ventilation analyses run early in the schematic redesign process determined which window and ventilation solutions would work best with maximized use of natural daylight. The end result was a more efficient atrium with a much smaller carbon output. You can view the video case study for this project on the IESVE YouTube page.

This type of integrated design process is something we expect to see a lot more of as sustainable design continues to work its way into the commercial space.

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Tags:Architects, BIM, Building, daylighting, design, Engineers, IES, Modeling, Revit, Sustainability, VE-Pro, YouTube

Last week, we headed to the land down under for the 12th International Conference of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA). From November 14th to 16th in Sydney, Australia, simulation researchers, mechanical designers, government legislators and more came together with the local simulation user community for Building Simulation 2011, co-hosted by IBPSA Australasia and the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air-conditioning and Heating (AIRAH).

At the conference, we showcased and provided live software demos of VE-Pro, our suite of building performance simulation tools, and VE-Gaia, our architectural analysis tool. Our experts also had the opportunity to present a couple of research papers, one of which involved a case study of the William McCormack Place Stage 2 building, a government office building in Cairns, North Queensland. This paper explored key strategies used in the HVAC systems and discussed the thermal and CFD modeling involved during the earliest stages of the building design to optimize the building’s environmental performance.

The second paper we presented described two new indices to assess and benchmark building energy performance – the Climate Energy Index (CEI) and the Building Energy Index (BEI). In a nutshell, these globally-applicable energy indices were developed as a means of quantifying the climate impact on building energy performance, and distinguishing climate-related and climate-unrelated energy end uses. Our paper specifically described the derivation of the indices calculation methods, and presented some case study results based on two types of building models.

Overall, our team had a great time at the show meeting with others involved in the building performance simulation field. Regarding the papers we presented, they will be available on our website shortly – stay tuned!

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Tags:Australia, Building, climate, design, Modeling, VE-Gaia, VE-Pro

Just adding a few LED lightbulbs and a low flow toilet does not a sustainable building make. Yes, you will save energy and money over the course of time with these eco-friendly choices, but the most important choices are the ones you make before you even break ground on the building.

Consider this:
During the lifetime of a building, the initial investment of construction represents 20 percent of overall cost. A company will incur the heft of the building’s expense — 80 percent — through its operating cost, says Cary Gampher, of AIA and principal architect with The Architects Alliance. To minimize the weight of that 80 percent, utilizing sustainable design for a commercial remodel or construction is about more than making a few environmentally friendly choices.

{Taken from Jefferson City Magazine}

Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that the actual cost to construct a building is small compared to the lifetime of expenses a building owner will incur. Take, for example, natural light within a building. The impact of lighting on energy usage is enormous. Visual comfort, glare, solar irradiance – these are all factors to consider when positioning a building.

Using an early-stage analysis tool such as our VE-Pro can show you the results of positioning at different times of the year, at different times of day under multiple conditions. Looking at daylighting is also an important consideration to LEED requirements (EQc8.1).

Using advanced simulation and incorporating energy analysis into the entire design process, changes to the design of the building can be made early and often. And that’s how building owners will save on the 80% of the building expenses over the lifetime of the building. But you’ve got to do it from the very beginning.

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Tags:Building, daylighting, design, Sustainability, VE-Pro

Last week, we were invited to present at the Seattle Energy & Design Roundtable (SEDR) meeting. SEDR is a Seattle-based group of architects, engineers and other design professionals interested in energy efficient design and renewable energy in buildings. The group hosts monthly presentations that address energy and design related topics, including software tools, design methods and case studies.

Last week’s session was entitled, “Using IES Energy Modeling to meet the 2030 Challenge.” I was able to present an overview of the VE from VE-Ware all the way through VE-Pro, showing a project in the early phase design all the way through project completion and submittal to rating authorities.

But the best part of the presentation was when Dan Munn and Matt Glassman of DLR Group presented their first-hand experiences using VE-Gaia. DLR Group uses IES software for early phase design to help architects reach their Architecture 2030 goals. Dan and Matt were able to share how the team at DLR Group is able to do 7-hour energy modelling at early stages, using tools like the VE to educate architects on how to do it.

It’s certainly the highlight of my day when I can see the fruits of our labor at IES come to life on screen.

The event was a great opportunity for attendees to see real results of how our software has been implemented by users, and to ask questions in real-time. We also have a video of the presentation that we will post on the IESVE YouTube channel soon.

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Tags:Architects, Building, education, Engineers, IES, Modeling, Seattle, software, VE-Gaia, VE-Pro

We’ve had a few requests this month to discuss what support we provide for people looking to learn the software from scratch.

We offer loads of ways to help you learn the software…

1) Have you tried our “Getting Started” Tutorials?
You can download an example model and work through the PDF Guide, which provides a basic overview of all our VE-Pro modules.

You can get started here:

> Example Model
> Completed Model
> PDF Guide

2. Still struggling?
Why not sign up to our forums where our clients and our support staff get together to discuss issues, solve problems and generally provide help to one another.

3.  Did you know that we conduct weekly web demos? Each week our Consultants are online to give you an overview of the modules, so that you can see them in action.

4. We provide training on all our modules! We also offer bespoke training options, you can come to us or we can come to your office, you can even do it online! If you’re worried about cost, student e-training is £60 per person per session, or you may be eligible for funding.

5. If your licence does not cover maintenance and support you now have the option to purchase support credits and get some more expert assistance form the good looking guys in our tech support.

There are also many universities that teach our software as part of their Sustainable Architecture, Building Simulation (and many more) courses. This provides you with a support framework of other students and lecturers to help you through your learning process!

If you can think of any other ways that we can help you, then please get in touch!

Kaye

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Tags:Architects, Building, Engineers, software, Training, VE-Pro

2010-imperative

As we discussed earlier this year, the 2010 Imperative is on a mission, challenging colleges and universities to become carbon-neutral by 2010. It also aims at making ecological literacy become a key element of design education by that year in an effort to combat global warming and world resource depletion. Many students, firms and Universities have already signed up for 2010 Imperative, as you can see on http://www.architecture2030.org/2010_imperative/2010imperative_adoptions.php.

In fact, it is the students who seem really concerned by climate change, many have chosen to personally adopt the 2010 Imperative and are therefore committed to encouraging their schools to adopt and implement it. Several facebook groups have been created about the 2010 Imperative, which further shows that students want to make everybody sensitive to the challenge launched by the planet.

IES is on-board and doing all we can to help, offering all N. American schools signed up for The 2010 Imperative a free VE-Pro network license, which is worth thousands of dollars. Some of the schools that have signed and taken us up on this offer are the Pratt Institute of Technology, University of Southern California and Savannah College of Art and Design.

But this initiative isn’t just something colleges and universities should be considering. Nationwide, we can all help to make the world a more eco-friendly place by reviewing the ways in which we use things in our everyday lives. Or of you’re in the construction industry, sign up to the 2030 Challenge, and commit to designing buildings with greatly reduced carbon footprints.

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Tags:2010 Imperative, Architecture 2030, free, reduce, VE-Pro

Our managing director, Dr. Don McLean, came to visit me in Hong Kong for 2 days last week.  While he was here has gave a free seminar to introduce the forthcoming <Virtual Environment> version 6.0; including the new VE-Gaia, enhanced Sustainability and LEED Toolkits, and other new (hush hush) additions and enhancements.

The seminar was held in Caine Room, Level 7, of the Conrad Hotel on 26th June 2009 from 9:15am to11:30am.  We had 28 out of 35 people turn up, mainly engineers with a few architects, representatives from academic institutes and specialists in BIM. Companies included: Arup, Hyder Consulting, AECOM, Scott Wilson, Cundall, MTR, RMJM, InteliBuild, Integrated Design Associates Ltd, Form and Structure, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

We received a great response from the audience with the concept of VE-Gaia drawing the most attention - people could really see how it will be much easier for them to step from the VE-Toolkits into the full capabilites of VE-Pro using VE-Gaia.  The new features of the Sustainability and LEED Toolkits also received a lot of interest among companies working on LEED projects.

We’d like to thank everyone for attending and the assistant of Tecton Limited in organising this seminar.

Jimmy Lee

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Tags:building performance, Hong Kong, LEED, perfromance rating method, PRM, sustainable cities, V6, VE-Gaia, VE-Pro, VE-Toolkits