| authors |
Yezioro, Abraham |
| year |
1994 |
| title |
Form and Performance in Intelligent CAAD Systems for Early Stages in Solar Design Building |
| source |
Technion, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planing, Haifa |
| summary |
Great care should be taken at the initial design stages to determine the principles and solution schemes for climate and energy-conscious buildings. The present study deals with supporting the designer's efforts at the early stages to lay down the appropriate principles for a conceptual and geometric design of energy-preserving buildings, which are also thermally comfortable and adapted to local climatic conditions. For years, especially during the last decade, important data concerning climate-conscious construction has been compiled, but the information has not been utilized by designers, due to its inaccessibility. It is significant, though, that solutions based on this knowledge could be found and assessed at the preliminary design steps. A correct climate-conscious design conceived at the initial stages may guarantee that during later phases of the project's development no problems calling for essential and drastic changes in the basic design will crop up. The meaning of such changes at later stages may require sometimes a redesigning of the entire project. It is vital, therefore, to understand at the pre-conceptual phase, what are the correct climatic-solar design strategies which satisfy the requirements of the local conditions, and enable the attainment of thermal comfort conditions, while consuming the least possible energy. The present study proposes a computer-aided passive solar design system (PASYS) which enables the handling of entire designing process, and its general, conceptual aspects, as well as the preliminary designing steps and their particular, practical aspects. The system is based both on a knowledge base which stores the existing information concerning solar-climatic construction in the form of rules of thumb, and on precise procedural models which enable finding solutions suited to the local climatic conditions. The proposed system is an intelligent CAAD system which equips the designer who is aware of the constraints of climate and energy, with a tool to achieve a better design. PASYS was developed as a universal system to deal with the various activities involved in the initial – pre-conceptual and conceptual - design stages. The system supports the following design activities of each stage of this kind: analysis, synthesis, documentation, assessment and decision making. It is capable of analyzing given conditions, thus helping the designer understand which are the significant preliminary design stages that have a bearing on thermal comfort conditions in a given climate. The system is also capable of proposing solutions corresponding with the particular design phase, and assess their adequacy. These solutions take into account the constraints determined both by the designer and by the system itself, owing to the knowledge base it contains. The system can also document the various solutions that have been found and selected, so that may be further developed at later stages. This documentation is carried out by a graphic interface, developed as part of the system, as well as by an interface devised for existing CAD software.
This study highlights the interaction between form and performance. The system is able to assess the performance of a proposed design by considering a given geometry (form), or viceversa, it is able to recommend a solution that can deliver desired and required performances. The study comprises three parts: (a.) Development of the conceptual model of a knowledge based design process.
(b.) Further development of the initial stages of the afore mentioned process, including the pre-conceptual and conceptual stages.
(c.) Demonstration of the mode of work with the PASYS system. // The first part of the study deals with the definition of the design process, the definition of the various design steps and their characteristics, and the definition of the activities involved in each design step. This part of the work also presents the kinds of knowledge bases affecting the design process, and shows how this knowledge is an inseparable part of the design process. The second part deals with the development of the initial design stages - the pre-conceptual and the conceptual - which are based on knowledge. This part also contains compiled knowledge that is relevant to the design stage, and a knowledge storage and retrieval method that was developed so as to make the knowledge available and accessible on demand. This part further presents precise procedural methods, developed to find solutions adapted to the specific given conditions, and to precisely assess the performance of the proposed solution. A case in point is the module of the SHADING system which enables a precise assessment of the mutual shading of buildings, and an examination of the exposure of the southern elevation to the sun, which is necessary in order to determine the effective solar absorption area in a proposed project in given environment conditions. The third part of the study demonstrates the solar-climatic design process put into action and supported by the system that was developed. This system enables the designer, even at the preliminary design stages, to determine which properties relating to local climatic conditions he will introduce into the building. This important, seemingly natural act, is usually performed during more advanced stages, when it might generate significant changes in the design, at a juncture when changes are hard to make. A PASYS-aided design environment ensures that from the beginning of the designing process, the project will be designed correctly and efficiently as far as energy is concerned.
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| keywords |
Knowledge Base; Design Process; Form; Performance; CAAD Systems |
| series |
thesis:PhD |
| email |
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| references |
Content-type: text/plain
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| last changed |
2003/03/03 11:58 |
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