IES Blog

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

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

An integrated design process is proving to be the key to achieving high-performance, sustainable buildings.  By bringing all of the project stakeholders to the table at the early conceptual stage of the process, the team can set forth with a common set of goals.  The result is that sustainable strategies are better coordinated during design and construction, and projects are more likely to be completed on time and on budget.  Once the project is complete and the building is operational, the owner and building operators are familiar with the efficiency measures that were implemented and know how to keep them running properly.

Let’s focus on the role of the design team – architects and engineers.  As a mechanical engineer, I have always enjoyed collaborating with architects to begin the analysis as early as possible.  The decisions we make during conceptual design will impact a building’s performance for its entire life, so it is important that we begin to quantify the impact of these decisions.  The building’s site orientation, its geometry, its envelope design, and the arrangement of spaces within the building (planning), will have dramatic effects on its energy consumption, the availability of daylighting, thermal comfort, and the effectiveness of passive strategies.  This is also the stage where we must develop an understanding of the climate to determine which sustainable strategies are most appropriate.

VE-Ware and the VE-Toolkits have been designed with these issues in mind, but also as a means to improve collaboration between architects and engineers.  As the architects devise various conceptual options in SketchUp or Revit, they can assess performance metrics along the way and share this information with the engineers for their input.  The engineers can then use the same analysis model to help refine and optimize strategies that have been found to be beneficial to the building’s performance, or make recommendations where aspects of the design are found to be detrimental.

So, you can see that this approach starts to blur the line between the traditional roles of the architect and engineer.  Architects performing analysis…Engineers helping the designers with the building form…What’s next?  Cats and dogs living together in harmony?  Only time will tell…

Dimitri Contoyannis, PE

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Tags:Architects, Engineers, Role of the Design Team, Sustainable Strategies, VE-Toolkits, VE-Ware