Ningyan Chen

Share your new tool in a way that allows others to download and easily use it.

Your complete submission should include:

• The Dynamo or Grasshopper scripts and all the supporting nodes needed to run your tool.

• Documentation for how to use your tool. It should include:
• A catchy name (or acronym) for your tool

Name: SustainSmart

SustainSmart combines the concepts of "Sustainability" and "Smart Design" This emphasizes that the tool aims to assist architects in making more sustainable and intelligent design decisions through data-driven methods in the early stages of design.

• A brief overview of what your tools does (to help users decide whether to download it and give it a try). Think of a “ReadMe” file for software.


Tool Introduction SustainSmart is a parametric building volume optimization tool based on Dynamo and Autodesk Generative Design, designed specifically to support sustainability assessment and form generation in the early design stages. Users can quickly generate different building forms and instantly obtain multiple performance indicators related to them by adjusting simple slider inputs, including material cost, operating energy consumption, solar potential, embodied carbon, operating carbon, window area under window to wall ratio, and compactness. All results can be visually compared in a graphical manner in the Generative Design interface, helping designers make more environmentally friendly and economical choices in the early stages.

Intended Users This tool is suitable for architects, architects, sustainable design consultants, and architecture students, especially when conducting block studies and environmental performance pre assessments during the architectural concept stage.

Design Purpose The initial volume determination in architectural design will have a profound impact on the energy consumption, carbon emissions, and construction costs of the building, but in traditional processes, these impacts are often difficult to assess in a timely manner. The design goal of SustainSmart is to quantify, visualize, and incorporate these impacts into the design decision-making process, helping designers achieve better solution selection at the most flexible stage of design and improve the environmental performance of buildings.

Input parameters (user adjustable)

Building Height (10–500 m)

Building Width (10–500 m)

Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR) (0.1–1)

Middle Radius (20-80m)

Base and Top Radius (20-100m)

Output indicators (automatically calculated)

Material Cost (USD)

Energy Cost (USD)

Solar Value (kWh)

Embodied Carbon (kg CO₂e)

Glazing Area (m²)

Operational Carbon (kg CO₂e)

Form Compactness Ratio

Use Method

• Open Revit, go to the "Management" tab, and start Dynamo.
• Load script file (. dyn).
• Adjust the input slider on the left side (such as height, radius, window to wall ratio, etc.).
• The model will be automatically generated in the background, and all performance indicators will be automatically calculated.
• Click on the top menu 'Generative Design'.
• Select "Optimize" or "Explore" to set goals that minimize or maximize (such as minimum carbon emissions, maximum solar energy revenue, etc.).
• The system will generate a large number of design variants and filter and compare them in the graphical interface.
• Click on any solution to view its 3D model and detailed performance data.

Download and Run SustainSmart provides script files in .dyn format, suitable for use within Revit’s Dynamo environment. To fully access its generative design capabilities, make sure Generative Design is enabled in the Revit installation.

• A teaser image that shows typical results, i.e. what users should expect to get as an output

Users can generate results through the SustainSmart tool. Each design variant corresponds to a three-dimensional form, with various output indicators clearly listed on the right side, including Material Cost、Energy Cost、Solar Value、Embodied Carbon、Glazing Area、Operational Carbon Compared to Form Compactness Ratio. The parallel coordinate graph below allows users to visually compare the performance of different designs in multiple performance dimensions, and by dragging the axis, they can quickly filter out solutions that meet specific optimization goals.





The following graphics are three examples generated by SustainSmart, which demonstrate the trend of the impact of input parameters on output indicators and help users understand the causal relationship between parameters. This type of visualization results allows users to adjust design strategies in a targeted manner, achieving goals such as minimum carbon emissions, maximum solar value, or cost optimization.




• A link to a recorded video demo (2 minutes max) in which you demonstrate how a user would interact with and benefit from using your parametric design tool.

Please be certain to share your video with a PUBLIC link that will allow anyone with the link to view it:

• If you use Zoom to record your video, download the recording to an MP4 file or Copy the shareable link from the Canvas interface.
• If you save an MP4 file to Google Drive or One Drive, be sure to set the permission to Allow Anyone with Link to View.
• If you use YouTube to host your video, set the Visibility to Unlisted, then paste the link into your Notion posting using the “/Video” command.

Be sure to test your video link to confirm that the visibility / permission settings will allow others to view it.

If you cannot open the above video, please use this link to open it: https://acc.autodesk.com/docs/files/projects/6db2c3ca-7a2c-4f34-96a1-8a8189c7754d?folderUrn=urn%3Aadsk.wipprod%3Afs.folder%3Aco.dYubAZF-TRKAuj8KMc2IwA&entityId=urn%3Aadsk.wipprod%3Adm.lineage%3AfXl0DwpsTPWafIfshNdCww&viewModel=detail&moduleId=folders