Developing better outputs from building thermal simulation tools to improve decision making in the design of low energy buildings

热模拟工具是低能耗/低碳建筑设计中的重要元素。然而，它们对建筑设计界的影响很小，尽管立法和工业和技术发展要求更多以性能为导向和节能的建筑。虽然这是一个多方面的挑战，但用于调查和解决这一问题的研究方法往往缺乏必要的丰富性和跨学科。目前来自模拟工具的输出往往与对建筑设计者有意义的概念无关，并且与他/她的建构主义/实验/从实践中学习解决问题的方法不相容。开发人员很少得到关于如何使用模拟结果来指导设计决策的充分信息。因此，对问题的反应往往是对模拟社区假设的建筑设计师需求的解释。这些反应往往基于研究方法，在将需求与适当的解决方案相匹配方面效果不佳。访谈、结构化在线调查、具体案例研究报告和与建筑设计师合作的观察等研究方法只是简单地描述了问题，而没有说明如何解决问题。尽管在早期设计阶段(通过OpenStudio将SketchUp与EnergyPlus连接起来，建立Autodesk Project Vasari等)在改进输入界面和促进建模方面取得了很大进展，但要有效地将建筑热模拟结果用于设计决策，仍有很多工作要做。显示与表面和体积相关联的温度和负荷的时间序列图表对于建筑设计师来说是没有意义的。设计师需要有效地将这些温度和荷载与他们正在处理的建筑元素联系起来的结果。这项研究建议将重点放在模拟工具的输出信息与建筑设计师在设计节能低碳建筑时做出明智设计决策所需的实际信息之间的差距--这种差距阻碍了模拟工具在整个建筑设计过程中更好地整合。因此，它的目标是生成程序，以产生对建筑设计师有意义的后处理信息和数据表示系统。这些程序和产出将通过跨学科协作开发的一系列经过测试和验证的实例加以说明。正如所建议的那样，建筑设计研究人员和建筑模拟软件研究人员之间的适当合作对于认识到这两个学科解释和操纵建筑热物理的不同方式并将其结合在一起至关重要。此外，这种方法为探索一种不同的研究方法创造了机会。该方法包括邀请建筑设计师提出他/她认为有用的建筑物理信息，以支持他/她的设计决策，该设计任务是专门为便于提取该信息而定制的。建议包括参数、指数、图表和多模式的结果表示方式，以及进行设计更改的可能性。这种方法以前没有在这个研究领域中使用过，目的是确保模拟工具与设计者的思维方式和操作方式保持一致，以减少目前在设计决策中纳入模拟结果的阻力。

Thermal simulation tools are an essential element in the design of low energy / low carbon buildings. However, they have made little impact on the building design community, despite legislation and industrial and technological development requiring more performance oriented and energy efficient buildings. Although this is a multi-faceted challenge, the research methods used to investigate and address it tend to lack the necessary richness and interdisciplinarity. Current outputs from simulation tools tend to be unrelated to concepts that are meaningful to the building designer and incompatible with his/her constructivist / experimental / 'learning by doing' way of approaching problem-solving. Developers are rarely provided with adequate information about how simulation results can be used to inform design decisions. Consequently, responses to the problem tend to be interpretations of what the simulation community assumes the building designer needs. These responses tend to be based on research methods that are ineffective in matching needs with their appropriate solutions. Research methods such as interviews, structured on-line surveys, reports of specific case studies and observations from working in collaboration with building designers simply describe the problem without showing how it can be solved. Even though much has been achieved in improving input interfaces and facilitating modelling in the early design stages (connecting SketchUp with EnergyPlus via OpenStudio, the set up of AutoDesk Project Vasari, etc.), there is still much to be done about the content and format of building thermal simulation results for them to be effectively used in design decision making. The displays of time-series graphs and tables with temperatures and loads connected to surfaces and volumes are meaningless for building designers to use. Designers need results that effectively connect these temperatures and loads with the building elements they are manipulating. This research proposes to focus on the gap that exists between the output information from simulation tools and what is actually needed for building designers to undertake informed design decisions when designing energy-efficient low carbon buildings - the gap that prevents simulation tools from being better integrated throughout the building design process. Hence, it aims to generate procedures to produce post-processed information and data representation systems that are meaningful to building designers. These procedures and outputs will be illustrated by a series of tested and validated examples developed through interdisciplinary collaboration. As suggested, proper collaboration between building design researchers and building simulation software researchers is essential to acknowledge and brings together the different ways these two disciplines interpret and manipulate building thermal physics. Moreover, the approach creates opportunities for a different research method to be explored. The method consists in inviting the building designer to propose what he/she thinks would be useful building physics information to support his/her design decisions when presented with a design task specifically tailored to facilitate the extraction of this information. Propositions include parameters, indices, diagrammatic and multimodal ways of representing results as well as possibilities of undertaking design changes. This method, not used before in this research area, aims to ensure that simulation tools will be consonant with the way of thinking and modus operandi of the designer, in ways that will mitigate current resistance to incorporating simulation results in design decision making.