Sign the online form, and start your course…

Back to: Building Performance Analysis Workshop In this first module, we’ll provide a high-level understanding of the issues involved in sustainable, high-performance building design. Before you can start learning how to do Building Performance Analysis, it might be helpful to learn what it is, and why it’s important. We’ll also take a closer look […]

Going over the basic concept of BPA and BIM.

This first section is meant to provide a high-level understanding of the issues involved in sustainable, high-performance building design. What’s the problem? Why are buildings so important? How do building designers start to address these issues? Let’s start by understanding more about the environmental issues that make this work.

In this section we’ll take a closer look at design goals for both occupant comfort and resource use. We’ll also talk about Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), a really important design goal to keep in mind because it forces you to make…

Buildings Buildings use energy, materials, water, and land to create the right environment for their occupants.

Full Lifecycle Cost Analysis.

Definitions for Net Zero Energy Buildings.

LOD and Building Performance Analysis.  

Sustainability requires a systems-based approach to design iteration. It is important to accurately account for the financial impacts of a design proposal. Also, understanding how systems thinking can be applied to cost can develop a better idea of how investment costs can be offset with […]

Buildings drive important environmental impacts and designing better, high performance buildings is critical to our future. Building performance analysis is about using goals and metrics […]

This is just the intro – and we’ve already covered a lot! Here are some key takeaways we hope you’ve come away with: Buildings drive important environmental impacts and designing better, high performance buildings is critical […]

In this module, we will cover how buildings use energy.

Thermal loads are the amount of energy needed to be added or removed from a space by the HVAC system to keep occupants comfortable.

Lighting, HVAC equipment, water heaters, and appliances are important to understand and optimize for high performance building design, and are important inputs for whole building energy analysis simulation.

Knowing how to measure energy use in buildings will help you set better energy efficiency goals.

Humans first created shelters to provide thermal comfort and protection from natural elements, and this still remains a primary objective of buildings.

Understanding fundamental heat flows from conduction, convection, and radiation is key to creating energy efficient buildings.

Every material used in an envelope assembly has fundamental physical properties that determine their energy performance like conductivity, resistance, and thermal mass. Understanding these intrinsic properties will help you chose the right materials to manage heat flows.

Good glazing properties are important because they control the amount of daylight, quality of light, and amount of solar heat gain let into the building, along with other factors…

This lesson explores the basic of using Insight and the workflow you will be using in most models and cases…

This lesson shows the workflow for creating an energy model for analysis with Insight.

Wind provides natural ventilation and usually cools buildings and people because it accelerates the rate of heat transfer. Wind speed and direction change throughout the day and year, and are not as universally predictable…

Wind rose diagrams help you visualize wind patterns at a site. Use them to better inform your design decisions, but be aware of unique microclimates and site considerations that wind rose diagrams will not capture…

A building’s immediate surroundings change its effective weather patterns, as nearby buildings or trees can block sunlight and change wind patterns.

Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for passive cooling, specifically, natural ventilation. As a general rule, thin tall buildings will encourage natural ventilation and utilize prevailing winds, cross ventilation, and stack effect…

Wind power uses wind to push a motor that generates electricity. Generators are usually called “wind turbines” but sometimes simply “windmills.”..

Natural ventilation, also called passive ventilation, uses natural outside air movement and pressure differences to both passively cool and ventilate a building…

Opening shape matters and can influence airflow effectiveness. Long horizontal strip windows can ventilate a space more evenly. Tall windows with openings at top and bottom can use convection as well as outside breezes to pull hot air out the top of the room while supplying cool air at the bottom…

Wind ventilation is a kind of passive ventilation that uses the force of the wind to pull air through the building…

Stack ventilation and Bernoulli’s principle are two kinds of passive ventilation that use air pressure differences due to height to pull air through the building…

Night-Purge Ventilation (or “night flushing”) keeps windows and other passive ventilation openings closed during the day, but open at night to flush warm air out of the building and cool thermal mass for the next day…

In very hot climates it’s often necessary to prevent outdoor air from getting into the building un-conditioned during the heat of the day…

Besides considerations of thermal comfort, indoor air quality means that the chemical composition of indoor air is clean and fresh…

Besides considerations of thermal comfort, indoor air quality means that the chemical composition of indoor air is clean and fresh…

In this module, you’ll study what climate conditions you should learn before making design decisions, and how these climate conditions will dictate your design decisions. You will also learn how to use Autodesk Revit to generate climate charts you can use to interpret energy analysis results.

Temperature varies throughout the day and throughout the year and is the most obvious metric to consider for passive heating and cooling design…

Temperature data can be represented in a variety ways. Fully utilizing temperature charts will help inform your design decisions and make sure you are considering all the data…

Humidity can be just as important as temperature for human comfort.  Too much humidity can amplify the heat and make it feel “muggy”, while not enough humidity can be uncomfortably dry…

Wind provides natural ventilation and usually cools buildings and people because it accelerates the rate of heat transfer. Wind speed and direction change throughout the day and year, and are not as universally predictable…

Wind rose diagrams help you visualize wind patterns at a site. Use them to better inform your design decisions, but be aware of unique microclimates and site considerations that wind rose diagrams will not capture.

Energy-efficient buildings are only effective when the occupants of the buildings are comfortable. If they are not comfortable, then they will take alternative means of heating or cooling a space such as space heaters or window-mounted air conditioners that could be substantially worse than typical Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems…

A psychrometric chart for a given location can tell you information about temperature (wet bulb and dry bulb) and humidity (relative and absolute). While they may seem overwhelming at first, by learning how the variables interact, you can begin to use the psychrometric chart to interpret occupant comfort and effective passive design strategies for your location…

In this module, you’ll study how the sun light and shadows move across your site…

Sun path diagrams can tell you a lot about how the sun will impact your site and building throughout the year. Stereographic sun path diagrams can be used to read the solar azimuth and altitude for a given location…

As the sun moves, it can encounter sky conditions that can intensify it or obscure it. It is important to understand these metrics and account for them when designing a net zero energy building…

The sun’s movement is an important consideration when designing high-performance buildings…

Passive design strategies can help reduce your building’s energy demands by using energy available from natural systems. Affect temperature and energy transfer through understanding the principles of convection, conduction, and radiation…

Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for passive heating. Massing and orientation for passive heating is often helped by extending the east-west axis of buildings to take advantage of the consistent sun on the northern and southern exposures…

Direct gain is the heat from the sun being collected and contained in an occupied space. This heat can be retained by the building’s thermal mass, or can be avoided with reflective materials…

A Trombe wall is a system for indirect solar heat gain and, although not extremely common, is a good example of thermal mass, solar gain, and glazing properties used together to achieve human comfort goals passively…

 Windows and other apertures bring in heat from sunshine, but can also lose heat by radiant cooling and by conducting heat better than most wall or roof constructions…

Orientation is one of the design factors that should be considered early in the design process because the building’s orientation to the sun has a considerable impact on the building’s heating and cooling loads. You can use Insight to rapidly explore the effect of rotating a building’s orientation on the site and see the impact on the predicted building performance…

Solar radiation is an important consideration in any building that strives for energy efficiency…

Solar hot water systems generate heat from sunlight. They are also called “solar thermal” systems, though that term can also refer to solar steam turbine electricity generators…

Solar photovoltaics (PVs) create electricity directly from sunlight. They are the most common form of on-site clean energy generation…

Using daylight in your building is a key strategy for passive design…

To design for visual comfort, you need to know how to measure light…

For true visual comfort, you don’t just need the right amount of illumination. Light needs to be well distributed to avoid discomfort…

For good visual comfort, light needs to have the right color and quality. Light can feel cool or warm…

Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for passive heating…

Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for passive heating…

Window configurations that use low-E coatings, selective transmission films, inert gas fills, and thermal breaks can lead to higher energy performance…

Redirecting light is the use of building elements to bounce sunlight into more desirable locations in the building. Light shelves and baffles are two strategies that can distribute light more evenly…

Views are the ability for building occupants to see landscape, objects, and people outside the building…

This lesson explores the basic of using Insight and the workflow you will be using in most models and cases…

Insight can also be used to analyze the building performance of detailed building element models that you’ve created in Revit…

A building’s program scopes the project by outlining its goals, conditions, and objectives. The program is usually defined by the owner, but it is important to also involve occupants and designers to create it…

Climate is the most important environmental factor and the first one that architects and engineers should consider when designing a building. To achieve a net-zero energy building, the design must consider the building’s specific site climate…

Humans first created shelters to provide thermal comfort and protection from natural elements, and this still remains a primary objective of buildings. The building envelope is the physical separator between the interior and exterior of a building…

Every material used in an envelope assembly has fundamental physical properties that determine their energy performance like conductivity, resistance, and thermal mass. Understanding these intrinsic properties will help you chose the right materials to manage heat flows…

Thermal insulation is a material that blocks or slows the flow of heat through the building envelope. Insulation is vital to most green building design because it allows spaces to retain what heat they have, while avoid gaining excess heat from outside…

In order to know the building’s true thermal performance, you must calculate overall R-values for assemblies like walls, roofs, floors, and glazing…

Good glazing properties are important because they control the amount of daylight, quality of light, and amount of solar heat gain let into the building, along with other factors…

Window configurations that use low-E coatings, selective transmission films, inert gas fills, and thermal breaks can lead to higher energy performance. The net effect of these measures is to reduce the U-factor, and the right choice of these features depends on the application…

Mechanical heating and cooling uses electricity or burning fuel to achieve thermal comfort in buildings…

Heat pumps move heat from one place to another. Some can pump heat both out of and into a building, for cooling or heating…

Radiant heating and radiant cooling systems are different from typical HVAC systems because they heat or cool surfaces rather than air…