With almost 70% of global population projected to live in cities by 2050, as well as the major role cities play as both energy consumers and carbon emitters, it is no surprise that the urban scale, from the block to the entire city, is receiving increasing attention in the discussion of the responsive design of future built environments.
Beyond Energy performance, regenerative principles are expanding the boundaries of urban environmental design towards new qualitative considerations such as visual comfort, outdoor thermal comfort and contact with nature.
CAN WE ACHIEVE URBAN DENSITY AND PERFORMANCE ?
THE CHALLENGES I ADDRESS
1. Environmental performance prediction in early urban design phases is a complex multi-dimensional task:
Different typologies
Different scales and levels of detail
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Combination of both building and urban parameters
2. Current evaluation methods usually focus on only one or two indicators (mostly energy associated) and evaluate them separately, overlooking qualitative considerations (e.g. daylight, outdoor thermal comfort) and the trade-offs between them which is key for a responsive optimization.
3. High level of complexity and lack of automation result in limited ability to evaluate and compare large sets of design scenarios.
THE METHODOLOGY I OFFER
1. An automated and expandable workflow allowing to explore multiple performance indicators simultaneously ... and account for the interrelations between them.
Daylight availability
Outdoor comfort
Energy demand
PV Energy supply
design scenarios
2. Generating multiple design scenarios for evaluation, based on various combination of building and urban design parameters for which the results are streamed and visualized for easy optimization.
3. GENERATIVE DESIGN | At larger scales and heterogeneous configurations optimization algorithms combined with simplified calculation methods are used to highlight the best design solutions.
design scenarios
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
HOW IT IS DONE ?
1. With new environmental criteria keep being introduced - one simulation engine is not enough! That's why powerful tools are coupled together in a parametric workflow which can be expanded and adapted according to a specific design task, climatic context or environmental challenge.
2. Considerable research experience on environmental urban analysis guides the selection of reliable tools, cutting edge computational methods and interfaces for environmental urban design and analysis.
3. Let's not forget the Architects! it is possible to pursue architectural designs which enhance environmental principals, rather than solutions which are limited by environmental constrains.
4. Not stopping at nice environmental analysis color images...
My scientific orientations helps question the results, search for reliable answers and reach the desirable balance between research and design considerations.
What's under the hood -
LATEST NEWS
Presenting at SimAUD 2020
Check out our presentation (click the image above) for the paper - Multi-Objective Optimization for Zero-Energy Urban Design in China: A Benchmark.
With Dr. Thomas Wortmann
New Publication!
'Beyond nearly zero energy urban design: A holistic microclimatic energy and environmental quality evaluation workflow' in Sustainable Cities and Society.
Workshop in Copenhagen
As part of the 'Architecture and Extreme Environments' master's programme at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Design (KADK). The workshop during March 2020 focused on Digital workflows for Sustainable Environmental Design in Hot Climates.