Computer assistance for sustainable building design

Abstract

The greatest opportunity for sustainable building design strategies occur in the early stages of design when the most important decisions are taken. Nevertheless, it is the stage with the least computer support. This paper presents recent research efforts at ETS toward the long term goal of developing the next generation of computer assistance to designers of sustainable buildings. Two research thrusts are presented: (1) to provide assistance to designers earlier in the design process, and (2) to provide better means to support collaboration among the various stakeholders. Two research projects are briefly presented that belong to the first thrust: an approach that allows structural engineers to propose feasible structural systems earlier directly from architectural sketches; and another that provides a means to optimize aspects of a building selected by the designer. A new laboratory is presented that will provide the infrastructure to carry out research in the second thrust. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.