ENVIRONMENTAL FACADE DESIGN TOOL Ms Syreeta Robinson-Gayle, BEng, MIM ~ Fagade Engineer Mr Stephen Tanno, BSc CEng MICE MIEAust - Group Director Buro Happold Facade Engineering 17 Newman Street, London, WIT IPD, UK. ABSTRACT The facade of a building can have a large effect on the environmental impact of a building and the internal conditions within it because it is the main interface between the extemal and internal environments. The design of a building facade influences thermal and lighting conditions and energy use associated with the provision of these conditions. However, key decisions about the building fagade are usually taken during the concept design stage of a building while decisions about the method of providing the environmental conditions are often taken later in the design process. ‘The work described in this paper addresses this issue by developing a concept design tool, which allows the design team to investigate the effect of fagade design on the resulting internal environmental conditions and energy use. The concept design tool hhas been developed by carrying out detailed thermal, lighting and environmental modelling for a number of generic office building facade designs and a range of parameters which directly affect the environmental performance of an office building. ‘The results are presented in the form of a user friendly interface requiring a minimum number of inputs. Key parameter outputs (such as temperature, lighting levels, air quality, heating/cooling energy requirements, embodied energy and ecopoints) can then be viewed in one screen while a more detailed comparative analysis can also be created for specified facade designs, The tool developed is aimed at architects and engineers to use during the early concept stages of project design to help select the appropriate generic type of facade system. Too often in those early stages designers have no simplified methods of determining which is the most suitable choice of fagade. The tool has been developed in close collaboration with designers to meet their requirements. KEY WORDS Facade, environmental impact, thermal modelling, design, concept design tool, daylighting, embodied energy. 65INTRODUCTION There is a growing interest in the design of buildings with a minimum environmental impact. This is mainly due to the high percentage of primary energy consumption by the construction sector and the consequence effect on CO2 emissions. There are a wide range of building strategies that the energy conscious designer can implement. However the choice of fagade affects, and is affected by the overall HVAC and structural strategy for a building. There is a need to understand and investigate the effects that different facades have on the operational costs of the building as well as. the internal conditions created. (Reijnders and van Roekel 1999). Highly glazed facades with operable fenestration and natural ventilation can reduce the energy use of buildings and, in some situations, increase the well being of the occupants, but this is not the whole picture (Peippo 1999). The facade design, along with the form of the building, is developed at a very early stage of the construction process; it is often the basis for the award of the contract to a particular firm of architects or developers. Typically, a detailed energy analysis of the facade, along with the whole building, is carried out when the servicing strategy is being developed. This is a useful approach but, detailed analysis requires information about the building, which may not have been decided at the concept design stage. This restricts detailed energy analysis to the latter stages of design. At the latter design stages changes to the extemal appearance of the building are severely restricted by the plans submitted to the planning authorities. This allows only small variations in the facade design to provide the best option since the overall facade typology is “locked” into the design at an early stage by the nature of the process. The greatest opportunity to evolve an environmentally efficient facade design is at the cearliest stages of the design process. The types of design tools which can be employed at early design stages must be simple and quick to use and involve the correct level of detail to be of use without requiring hours of data input to get a useful result. This paper details the development of a concept design tool intended to be used at the carlicst design stages to facilitate the facade choices made by the architect and client on a project. Using a limited number of design inputs it will be possible to compare facade systems and variations of those systems. DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOOL ‘The tool was developed by using three detailed simulation models to model a standard office building (Leighton 1990): * A dynamic thermal model, which provided energy consumption and internal thermal conditions. This used the materials thermal properties and the history of temperature internally and externally to predict the internal temperature on an hourly basis. * A steady state lighting mode! which shared a common model format and hence the imported the model developed in the dynamic thermal model and calculated the lighting environment based on the optical properties associated with the facade. 66* An LCA accounting tool that calculated the impacts associated with the construction and use of the building based on information about the construction and energy use in the building over a fixed time. Domain A Domain C t ¥ Exportable ode ermal mode) Lighting im (ermal mode ting LCA mode Independent ‘Applications, TAS Lightscape Team s/t 7 Database Figure 1 Process diagram of tool development. Figure 1 describes graphically how the three models were used to develop the concept design tool INPUT PARAMETERS, The user is able to select an example solution using the following input parameters: Type of building Orientation Facade type Energy practice Shading type‘The information in the FACADE design tool are based on the following sets of assumptions with regards to the performance of the facades and building materials: DESCRIPTION OF SELECTION OPTIONS The user can select from five different facade types: Heavyweight Fagade Lightweight Facade Masonry Facade Double skinned Fagade Curtain Wall Each of the facade types can be either a standard system or a high quality fagade system. The U value and the infiltration rate through the facade determine the fagade quality. The facade types can be applied to two different building structures a heavy weight naturally ventilated building and a lightweight mechanically ventilated building. There are shading options and the choice between energy conscious and typical energy consumption in the building. Figure 2 Selection sereen of the Facade Selection Tool, 6Figure 2 shows the tial selection screen shown in the tool. Once a fagade and building selection has been made the user is presented with a set of indicative results which illustrate the effect the fagade has on the integrated building performance These results include the heating and cooling loads in kWhi/m’, internal comfort temperatures using both minimum and maximum resultant temperatures, intemal lighting values using daylight factor and the environmental impact measured in both embodied energy and eco-indicator 99 points. The following areas of the tool allow the user to explore the internal light levels, thermal environment, energy use and environmental impact of the fagade selection on the building. The internal light levels are shown in lux at desk height for a standard overcast sky. The thermal environment screen shows the average internal resultant, external resultant temperatures and the relative humidity for each month of the year. ‘The energy use is shown in kWh/m” for each month of the year, the results are split into loads for cooling, heating dehumidification, humidification and small power loads. The environmental impact is shown in terms of eco-indicator -99 points a life cycle analysis valuation method developed by Pré (Goedkoop 2000). CONCLUSIONS: ‘The Fagade Selection design tool is simple and easy to use. It is intended as a non- expert user tool to assist primarily architects, but also engineers, to integrate the environmental impact of fagade selection choices into the design at the very earliest stages. The use of this tool will raise questions and set parameters that can be explored by the design team at the detailed design stages. REFERENCES Goedkoop, M, Effting S. and Collignon M. (2000). Eco-indicator 99: A damage oriented method for life cycle impact assessment. PRé Consultants B.V., Amersfoort. Leighton, D. J. Pinney, A. A. (1990) A set of standard descriptions for use in modelling studies. BEPAC technical Note 90/5, BRE, Watford. Peippo, K., Lund, P.D, and Vartiainen, E, (1999) Multivariate optimization of design trade-offs for solar low energy buildings. Energy and Buildings, Vol. 29, pp. 189 - 205 Reinders, L. and van Rockel, A. (1999). Comprehensiveness and adequacy of tools for the environmental improvement of buildings. Journal of Cleaner Production, No. 7, pp. 2221-2225 °