Optimised building form for environmental sustainability

Built environment professionals have the opportunity to contribute towards a significant reduction in GHG emissions using green design principles. The starting point of green design is the optimum building form that requires less energy to construct and to operate, provided that the other design goals are satisfied. Using the interoperability based Architectural Design Optimisation Tool (ArDOT) software environment, this research was aimed at the optimisation of form and orientation of an example building in two different climatic locations. The optimisation process was driven by the results from the building simulation software, integrated into ArDOT using Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). The objectives were to reduce annual demand for energy and to maximise daylight availability. The applicability of the framework has been investigated in the early stages of architectural design, where required parameters for building simulation are not fully known. A standards based mapping is used to compensate for the missing data and to enable the design team the access to detailed based simulation programs. The results from the research show the advantages of using mathematical optimisation techniques for environmental sustainability through a directed exploration of the solution space.