A Simulation-based Optimisation Tool for the Minimisation of Building Carbon Emissions and Water Usage

当代建筑仿真工具使建筑设计师能够评估用户定义的设计解决方案的性能（对于给定的建筑形式，建筑材料的选择，暖通空调系统类型和控制策略等）。然而，即使是经验丰富的设计师，在多参数建筑设计空间中探索替代设计解决方案的要求也很高，并且可能导致设计解决方案不能真正减少建筑的碳排放、资本成本或水的使用。该项目旨在为设计师提供自动生成的设计解决方案，以最大限度地减少建筑的碳排放、资本成本和用水量。它还旨在为设计师提供有关这些设计目标对设计参数变化的敏感性的信息。这些信息将使设计师有信心，他们的决定不会导致与建筑能源性能相关的不可预见的负面后果，特别是低碳建筑。设计解决方案将通过创新的设计过程和相关的软件工具生成，该软件工具基于已建立的建筑性能模拟和进化优化方法的集成，先前的研究表明，这种方法可以产生比当代设计实践产生的设计能耗低32%的设计。新的设计工作流程和软件工具将为设计师提供可替代的设计解决方案，从而为他们的设计决策提供基础，这最终将导致整个建筑行业的新工作方式。这种创新的方法将适用于每一个设计阶段，通过将其应用于概念设计阶段（在此期间，探索替代设计解决方案的潜力最大），建筑性能将获得最大的收益。

Contemporary building simulation tools enable building designers to evaluate the performance of user-defined design solutions (for a given building form, choice of construction materials, HVAC system type and control strategy, etc). However, for even the experienced designer, the exploration of alternative design solutions in the multi-parameter building design space is highly demanding, and can result in design solutions that do not truly minimise the buildings carbon emissions, capital costs, or water usage. This project aims to provide designers with automatically generated design solutions that minimise the carbon emissions, capital costs, and water usage of a building. It also aims to provide designers with information on the sensitivity of these design goals to changes in the design parameters. This information will give designers confidence that their decisions do not lead to unforeseen and negative consequences associated with the energy performance of buildings, and in particular, low carbon buildings. The design solutions will be generated through an innovative design process and associated software tool that is based on the integration of an established building performance simulation and an evolutionary optimisation method, previous research having demonstrated that such an approach can produce designs that have up to 32% lower energy use than those resulting from contemporary design practice. The new design workflow process and software tool will provide designers with alternative design solutions on which to base their design decisions, this ultimately leading to a new way of working across the building industry. The innovative approach will be applicable at every design stage, with the most significant gains in building performance being through its application to the concept design stage (during which there is the greatest potential to explore alternative design solutions).