Share a brief overview of your proposed tool or solution (1 page max) that outlines the essentials of your plan. It should include:
Intended users
Architects
Mechanical Team
Sustainability Team
Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for
I hate all glass buildings! Windows are great for daylighting, of course, but too much glazing can cause issues. Glass is expensive, a bad insulator, experiences solar heat gain, and too much daylight can cause glare. It is important for energy efficiency and occupant comfort to have a balanced window to wall ratio. I plan to make a design assistance tool that allows designers to put in their plans for the glazing and see how that impacts a variety of factors for the building like the envelope insulation and lighting to help them find a balanced ratio for their design.
Inputs
- Window to wall ratio (0-100%)
- Building dimensions/geometry
- I’ll probably keep it simple for the geometry — just a rectangular prism so length, width, height
- If I have time, I might explore adding the option to grab a Revit model instead, so it can take an existing, more complex design
- Window SHGC (0.15-0.75) (theoretically 0-1 but this is a real world range)
- Window VLT (0-100%)
- Building location/site (set by user in Revit under solar settings)
- Window R-value
- Wall construction R-value
- Also, maybe the cost per sf of the glazing to get a cost estimate
Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement
- Use building geometry inputs to build a form
- Use custom node to select wall surfaces —> get square footage
- Execute calculation of composite envelope R value based on WWR & respective R-values (weighted based on area)
- Also, will report the % decrease in R value from the case where the building had no windows
- Calculate heat gain in Btu (SHGC x sf)
- Execute a daylighting/glare analysis
- I’m still figuring out the underlying logic for this! I’m looking at Honeybee and exploring how those custom nodes work. There is one for Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI) which is between 100-2000lx which will also filter out the daylight that is too high for glare.
- Honeybee also has nodes for glare analysis, but it is based on an image, not for the whole building, so I’ll see what I can do there.
Outputs
- Composite envelope R-value
- % decrease in R from baseline (0% WWR)
- Solar heat gain (Btu)
- UDI (0-100%)