Simulation of Imagined Realities: Environmental Design Decision Support Tools in Architecture

The spur for this research was a lack of use by architecture practitioners of the environmental design decision support tools (eddst’s) they learn to use during their education. It was hypothesised that lessons for the improvement of eddst’s could be found in a systematic examination of the problems encountered by design teams with a range of currently available eddst’s. The research plan was to establish through surveys and case studies how practising architects who have tried to use building eddst’s assess the effectiveness of these tools. A range of different types of eddst was examined, each addressing a different aspect of the environment in buildings. The research did not achieve its original goal of developing a formula for the generation of new eddst’s for architects in the fields of building acoustics, lighting, thermal design and aerodynamics. What was found is a more fundamental common denominator underlying building design eddst’s: the need for built-in Quality Assurance measures that assure not only the architect, but also the simulationist and the client of the reality of the ebuilding performance predictions. It was found that contrary to their general reputation, designers do want detailed quantitative environmental information. They want to be able to discuss costs and benefits of decisions. However, they also want to be able to understand and trust this information. The output from eddst’s must therefore also be qualitative in the sense that it communicates the quality of life resulting from a design decision. What is proposed therefore for designers and simulationists is Quality Assurance (QA) procedures that are codified and incorporated into the design tools themselves. These are to ensure that the ‘black box’ of a digital simulation of building performance yields information that designers feel they can trust. The research demonstrates that to address the issues identified in the practitioner surveys, a Quality Control (QC) reality test is the single most important feature needed in any QA process. This would be a reality test that examines whether the ebuildings constructed with an eddst behave in a believable manner - like a ‘real’ building. The proposed Simulation QA (SimQA) approach is an internet web service. It is a database of the databases available on the internet of Quality Assured performance data. Each time a person sets up a new Quality tested eddst input file or measures a building, it becomes another “data point” - another database listed in the SimQA metadata. Also required in a robust QA process is the development of international norms for the simulation of building performance. www.aecsimqa.net is proposed as the venue for the development of an international documentation standard for simulation. Finally, modern computer-based building performance simulation has not rid the design profession of its traditional problem with design tools: that they evaluate completed designs. The proposed database will make web-accessible a set of tested building designs and their associated performance measures. Placed at the designer’s fingertips this will reveal insights into how their current building design should perform. It should be possible to generate initial design ideas based on systematic study of the successful precedents!