In case this missed your notice, there’s a newly released WhitePaper on how to get started using Autodesk tools to complete early conceptual energy analysis. Fear not, this is really a bit of fun once you get started.
It has been said, most important decisions affecting energy use happen in the earliest part of design. Comparative analysis of design iterations in a – “this one is 10% better or worse than the other option” can go a long way toward responding to climate in ways you may have previously thought would require months and an energy consultant. Not that you don’t, however, testing intuition against tangible results can help you have more meaningful conversations with those specialists. Your HVAC engineer will thank you for designing a more efficient building, so they don’t have to throw (as much) equipment at an inefficient building layout to meet your client’s energy goals.
Coffee with Revit - just because, you know you want it. Image credit: RevitFamiliesOnline.com
Been looking for some way to learn more about conceptual modeling in Revit / Vasari? You can join the Vasari development team for some live sessions on specific topics. Join Vasari Talk every Wednesday, bring your own coffee. The announcement is here.
Back already? Good. I must admit after reading that announcement, I’m feeling a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves… as Steve pointed out, this slipped some of our notice, as three sessions have already happened (and luckily recorded as part of the Wiki). Read his post for more…
Note, previous versions of this video were without slides, and this version has been improved to show the visuals accompanying Steve’s very engaging and inspiring talk. I hope you all enjoy it!
At the 2010 Design Futures Council Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design, Steve McConnell, Managing Partner of NBBJ spoke about new technologies that are driving innovative sustainable design solutions at NBBJ. Using two projects currently under construction, Steve discusses the need for new models of collaboration to enable paradigm shifts in our industry. For more information on NBBJ, visit nbbj.com.
It is both an honor and joy to work with such talented and visionary leaders. There are nine other wonderful presentations from other industry leaders (including one by the also eloquent speaker Phil Bernstein) also found at Design Intelligence on Vimeo.
So, you’ve managed to build some cool masses of your early design. What now? While this is not fresh news, it just makes sense to highlight some of the things you can now do with a Revit to study your designs from an energy performance perspective.
It has been said that nearly 60% of the possible energy reductions possible as compared to a base design can be achieved by decisions made in the first two weeks of form finding. This is before the architect has even begun to thing about glazing types, or involved an engineer to approach the problem with systems.
There are really two easy approaches to getting at this data. They involve place, and of course orientation. For example, there’s the sun, which can make or break a design, and then there’s other climate factors and the cost of energy for your region.
Starting first with orientation, depending on the climate, you will want to either avoid or capture direct incident solar radiation - insolation for short. This can be accomplished with the Solar Radiation tool. This freely available tool, found through Autodesk Labs will let you understand the hotpots based on daily peaks, hourly, or averages over a period of time. So for LasVegas, it would be good to look at the summer. You’ll want to avoid situations like this: Death Ray.
Climate data, now readily accessible through Revit using the subscription advantage pack for Revit Architecture and Revit MEP 2011 connects you to over 5TB (yes as in terabytes) of worldwide climate data from weather stations. You can place your building on the Earth, make some basic assumptions about percentage of glazing, shading devices, and use. Waving a magic wand (OK, starting the Analyze Model tool) pushes your design to the cloud, it will be analyzed in Green Building Studio and you can get real comparative analysis. Yes, this supports the Revit design options. This report also, of course includes costs and potential for on-site renewables and passive strategies.
Where it all comes together
So, you say you are not on subscription, well have no fear, because for a time, these are all available for the low, low price of FREE in a standalone package, with the bonus of massing and rendering. Vasari, is a preview of a Revit Lite if you will, allowing designers to have the early tools without all the other project overhead associated with a full-featured documentation tool. So, if you haven’t tried Revit or Green Building Studio, now’s your chance. You’ll never look back. But don’t take my word…
Small cities deserve well-designed civic buildings and museums. This is one, designed by the accomplished Seattle firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects (soon to be renamed Olson Kundig Architects), whose body of work is well known throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The building is so nick-named for the 180 foot long double glazed wall which runs like a spine through the entire project and partially defines an outdoor court. The official purpose, at least currently, is the Art and Children’s Museum of the larger organization, the Whatcom Museum. The History Museum will continue to function in the old City Hall building, which is a historic landmark in itself. The new building will be the first museum in Washington State to be built to LEED Silver standards. Here’s the official announcement from the city, which also contains an interesting time lapse video of the construction.
The building shell went up very fast with mostly precast concrete insulated panels. These have a very stone like quality about them which is interesting in itself. The storefront details are well done, but the double curtainwall Lightcatcher steals the show. I definitely recommend a visit to see the building, and of course the artwork inside. The current exhibits are actually very interesting and feature some prominent artists from around the globe.
I attended the grand opening last weekend among great fanfare. Attendance was free, thanks to a local bank as the event’s sponsor. My only complaints were that on opening day, the upstairs atrium gallery was a little too narrow for the crowds trying to weave their way to the main exhibits. Ironically, the photographs displayed on that wall were of the area’s logging history. Perhaps it was the curator’s intent to create a human log-jam, creating an interactive exhibit. Second, that upstairs level really seems like a programmatic mish-mash. It is a small building, but seemingly unrelated rooms like an exhibit space and the children’s activity room were next to the director’s glass jewel box of an office, which couldn’t have had more Design Within Reach furnishings if it had been the company’s 1st Ave showroom in Seattle. Lastly, and this isn’t the building’s fault by any means, I was dissapointed that the roof garden over the lobby was not accessible. There are patio blocks and seating out there as well as an informational sign explaining the virtues of the living roof and rainwater collection. I guess I’ll read it another time.
I took a few photos of the atrium, and exterior. The lobby was too full of people to see much, but is a well-designed arrival space. Since it was dusk, these are a little grainy. Maybe it’s time for a new camera, or should open the manual for once. FYI: No photographs are allowed in the exhibit spaces, as is typical in most museums. Enjoy.
My only complaints were that on opening day, the upstairs atrium gallery was a little too narrow for the crowds trying to weave their way to the main exhibits. Ironically, the photographs on that wall were of the area’s logging history. Perhaps it was the curators intent to create a human log-jam. Second, that the roof garden was not accessible. There are patio blocks and seating out there as well as an informational sign explaining the virtues of the living roof and rainwater collection. I guess I’ll read it another time.
Looking for ways to save money on training? Why not attend a short focused event that will provide high value at an affordable cost? The following topics are announced:
Nov 13 @ 10AM PST – Integrating: Revit with Ecotect – 2 hours
Nov 23 @ 10AM PST – Secrets of Revit Conceptual Massing – 2 hours
Integrating: Revit with Ecotect
Looking for ways to integrate sustainable design into your current workflow, or simply a way to work smarter? Perform analysis of building designs when it has the most potential rewards, during conceptual design. Seating is limited, so sign up today.
Topics Covered:
Using Revit conceptual models
Preparing a Revit project model
Export options for gbXML
Compelling reasons for exporting to DXF
Optimum Ecotect import settings
Considering site and weather conditions
Applying parametric rules to Ecotect objects
Performing early daylight and thermal analysis
Iterative design and optioning
View the full course information, and sign up today at EventBrite.com
Secrets of: Revit Conceptual Massing
Revit Architecture 2010 has some very powerful conceptual design tools, but for those migrating from earlier versions of the software using these new tools can be daunting at first. If you want to understand how to create flexible, parametric building forms this class is for you. We will cover the essentials of the conceptual mass editing environment, as well as how to create sophisticated organic forms. Seating is limited, so sign up today.
Topics Covered:
The Conceptual Design environment
The Importance of building jigs
Pros and Cons of choosing a modeling method
Working with legacy massing objects
From box to organic form
Subtleties of the environment
Surface rationalization
Creating and extending panel families
Extracting data for design analysis
View the full course information, and sign up today at EventBrite.com
Other News:
Additionally, full course sample agendas are now released for Revit Architecture 2010 and Ecotect Analysis 2010. For more information visit the Training page.
The Revit Architecture production training is part of the Productivity. Fast!™ implementation system. This allows you to get up to speed quickly by combining training with a live project and applied concepts. Mentoring and project assistance is provided ‘just-in-time’ so you can get your work done and capture lessons learned. Below is this four-part system of implementation which allows an entire office, or just a single pilot project to be completed with confidence. Each of these activities is a four-day period, which may be delivered all at once, or as project and team needs require.
Essentials Course
Advanced Course
Project Mentoring and Best Practices (Checkpoint)
Project Quality Assessment (Post Evaluation)
For more information, visit the Services section of the main website.
OK, so it’s not really a house, but perhaps a really good house wine. Every once in a while you find a very intriguing use of technology in architecture schools. Lately, the amount of good work has been not scarce. In this example, however there is evidence of biomimicry, parametric scripting, simple rendering using ambient occlusion, and using Ecotect to present sustainable analysis data in very compelling and rich ways. Bravo Andrea!
A well deserved kudos to all who participated in the Solar Decathlon is in order. This year’s entries have a level of sophistication and attention to detail that should inform the industry and heat up the debate on energy independence.
The Refract house, winner of the Architecture category is such a well-done concept. Not only does it bend producing more roof area concentrating on the best sun exposure, but creates and extends living space to the outdoors. From the photographs it is obvious that, while only 800 s.f., there is a visual separation form the adjacent spaces as the building form turns the corner.
An overview of the design process and a well-documented list of the features employed can be found on the official page below. It’s unclear what digital design tools were used in creating this project. Anyone that can provide some clues, you are welcome to add a comment to the post. The use of the Building Dashboard for monitoring energy consumption and production is especially interesting, since I covered this way back in February of 2007.
I and 50 other architects, designers, engineers, consultants and construction professionals just attended the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Seattle Ecotect® User Group. This meeting, sponsored by IMAGINiT and Callison Architecture was held at the Seattle offices of Skanska. Surely this will be the first of many exciting collaborative, and community-building meetings to come.
For those not familiar with Autodesk Ecotect: It is an early building performance and design analysis tool for use by architects and designers. Its primary purpose is to aid in the iterative design process and gain valuable early insight in to cost and performance measures of buildings, and can greatly contribute toward reaching energy efficiency and sustainability goals. Ecotect is very graphical in nature, and thus provides those sexy images that help sell complex ideas to the client while working with a broad suite of environmental analysis tools. Ecotect plays somewhat well with others, as it can import files from SketchUP, Revit, and other 3D CAD and BIM applications using the gbXML file format, and can also export data to many precise engineering tools such as EQuest, Radiance and EnergyPlus.
Some folks joined the meeting as an exploration of available technologies, and are studying their options for sustainable design tools. Others, approximately 25%, were current Ecotect users and expressed a desire to share experiences and best practices to take back an implement in their work.
A presentation and model sharing was given by Teresa Burrelsman of Callison, discussing the need for quick design simulation during a schematic design for a new tower in the city of Riyadh, and showing how Ecotect was used to determine energy cost savings and occupant comfort (especially reducing glare) by various schemes using shading devices. There was some discussion of these quick, down and dirty, ‘shoebox models’ and how invaluable they can be to drive design iteration.
Olivier Pennetier of Symphysis, a leading regional Ecotect consultant, joined by phone from his office in San Francisco and offered advice on modeling practices, as well as providing food for thought on how the community can begin to share information learned from the informal conversations these types of meetings generate.
Based on those in attendance, it was determined that the next meeting will take place on the second monday of the month, July 13th. The location is still to be determined. If you would like to learn more, please feel free to add to the discussion on this post. As more information on the next meeting becomes available, I will provide an update here.
Why are you showing me an image of a greenhouse? It’s a house, but a different shade of green. And it’s not for growing in the way you’d think. Huh? I will explain.
Perhaps a good reason to start pushing for software vendors to get animation of building components into their BIM or CAD applications, besides the cool factor, is this notion of biomimicry. Autodesk has formed a mini-web dedicated to the topic, which seems to have slipped by unnoticed. The concept is wonderful. Why not use nature as inpiration to build buildings that add to, rather than take away from their environment. Is sustainability simply just getting to a balance on the tipping point to success or failure? What has been gnawing away at the gut of BIM is the ability to design and simulate the design features in-place. It’s no fun to pull the design into Max and start adding “ik” controls just to understand the impact of an operable feature. Concurrent design and analysis becomes critical in the AEC world as designers become more sophisticated about the questions they ask their software to answer. Much like an industrial designer can test out moving parts of a machine with Inventor, architects should have the same level of sophistation in their own tools. Perhaps we are soo good at borrowing without complaint, that we are a good target for ‘upselling’. Don’t give us your laundry list of things that might do the job, let’s get the tools to do what we want internally, to avoid the asynchronous nature of exporting and importing peices and parts of a moving puzzle. Oh, yeah… so back to our little green, er red house.
So here, I present the house of the week – yes, it’s the same view as above. Then where did all that glass go? Why, it’s underneath the sliding roof form. Cool. Why? Be patient, and I’ll explain.
While not necessarily an example of biomimicry, this house certainly has the ability to react to it’s environment. When the living room is too sunny, slide some shade over the patio, change the view… it opens up some very interesting possibilities. Click through to see the whole progression.
I and 50 other architects, designers, engineers, consultants and construction professionals just attended the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Seattle 
