Project R-1583

Research on an evaluation method for assessing the sustainability of an architectural design from the early design stages. DESUSA method: DEsign SUpport for Sustainable Architecture (Research)

Although sustainability is currently very topical,' sustainable building ' still gets too little attention in the current architectural design process. However, the design process offers a great potential to exercise an impact on the sustainability of a building. From the start of the design process the important characteristics of the building are being established, such as compactness and orientation, which have an impact on sustainability. However, in this phase of the design there is little information available from the designer and most decisions are based on intuition and experience. Moreover, the available information, such as checklists and guidelines, is not adapted to their use during the design process, and the evaluation of a design usually happens at the end , having an eye for the regulations.To make the designers be aware of the impact of their design decisions on the sustainability of the building, there is need for an evaluation method that gives the designer project specific feedback, and this already from the early design phase. The overall objective of this doctoral research concerns the development of a method that allows the evaluation of the energetic and comfort quality of the design during the design process and based on the limited number of available input parameters, gives from the very beginning of useful feedback to the designer.The DESUSA method should apply from the first sketch to the detailed design. This requires that the calculation module evolves with the design and is adapted to the available input data of the design at any given moment.

01 January 2009 - 31 December 2012