THE OPTIMISED DESIGN OF BUILDING ENVELOPES

by

Giovanni Zemella

European Centre for Living Technology

Abstract

The aim of this presentation is to establish a holistic method for the design of the façade of new buildings and to assess some guidelines to be considered during the first stages of the design. It is very important to highlight that the approach presented in this presentation is to be applied since the very beginning of the design development, as it should guide the architect during the concept stage.
For the development of the method presented in this presentation, an optimisation tool has been coupled to a software managing the dynamic simulation for the thermal behaviour of the building.
The optimisation process deals with the results calculated by the dynamic simulations: the input data, representing the characterisation of the building, are varied in accordance with the limitations set by the designer, and the dynamic behaviour of the building is re-evaluated by means of a new run of the simulation tool. The thermal simulation calculates the energy expenditure for the different contributions (e.g. heating, cooling and artificial lighting), and then the annual carbon emissions can be evaluated. The resulting value for the objective function will guide the way the input data will be modified. This iterative process is managed by the optimisation tool, which follows the steps set by the chosen optimisation algorithm.
In this way it is possible to identify the configuration of the building that leads to a minimisation (or maximisation) of the objective function, properly chosen by the design team.

Folowing the presentation a meeting with Professor Onorio Saro (University of Udine) will take place.