AN ARTICLE AVAILABLE IN INTERNET – GUIDE

Introduction to ECOTECT

Issues such as climate change and diminishing resources are increasingly having a
significant impact on the way in which we design and construct our built environment. As
building design professionals, architects can no longer rely solely on intuition or generic
‘rules of thumb’ to design energy efficient buildings. With tools such as Ecotect, architects
are better empowered to make decisions regarding these matters, and can adopt a more
holistic approach towards building design. Ultimately, this will result in more energy efficient
buildings and a green, sustainable approach towards development

Ecotect is a 3D building analysis program that assists architects in analyzing many

aspects of a building’s performance, with a particular emphasis on creating energy efficient,
sustainable designs.It has grown to become a leading application for the analysis of building
performance, offering a diverse suite of tools for assessing aspects of a design such as solar
exposure, thermal performance, acoustics, lighting, shading, and much more.

Use of ECOTECT in the early stages of the design process

Many of the early design decisions we make on a project will have a major impact on
whether or not a building will use energy and materials efficiently. Consequently, the effect
of these decisions needs to be quantitatively assessed during schematic design and design
development. Ecotect is one such tool that assists architects to do this.

Ecotect modeling principles

Figure 1 shows an example of an Ecotect model for a two storey residence. This model was
created in Ecotect itself, but could have been modeled and exported from another application,
such as SketchUp or ArchiCAD—Ecotect supports a wide variety of 3D CAD formats.

Figure 1. A typical Ecotect model of a two storey residence

It is reasonably intuitive to view and navigate around an Ecotect model.

 Hold down the right mouse button, and you can rotate the view—the model always
rotates about its centre.
 Hold down the scroll wheel, and you can pan the model, and scrolling forward and
backwards zooms in and out respectively

 The first thing you may notice about the model is that the walls and floors have no
thickness (see Figure 2, which shows a closer view of one of the spaces).

 In Ecotect, the thickness of a wall or floor plane is a property of the material assigned
to it (e.g., cavity brick, timber frame, reinforced concrete, etc.) and so it doesn’t need to
be modeled in 3D.

 However, in the event that the walls and floors were modeled with thickness—such as
if you imported a 3D model created in another application—Ecotect can compensate
for the distance between these surfaces that should otherwise be adjacent.

 This will be explained in more detail in the following paragraph.

Figure 2. Walls and floors in an Ecotect model are represented as single planes, with the
thickness being a property of the material assigned to that plane.
 The model is broken up into a series of discrete spaces known as “Zones,” as shown in
Figure 3.

 Zones serve a similar function to classes or layers in other CAD programs for
organising elements of the model, in Ecotect, they also define areas for the purpose of
thermal analysis.

 As a general rule, a zone must be created as a fully-enclosed volume—imagine that a

zone is full of water and that it can be picked up and turned upside down. If any water
can leak out, it is not a fully enclosed thermal zone.
  Therefore when you model one zone next to another, you model both of the wall planes
that are adjacent, where each wall plane defines one enclosed volume.

 This overlap is compensated for when Ecotect performs an “Interzonal Adjacency”

calculation.

Figure 3. Each space or volume in an Ecotect model is defined as a zone for the purposes of
thermal analysis. Adjacent zones should still be modeled as fully enclosed volumes by
themselves.
 Doors and windows don’t count when determining if a zone is fully enclosed, because
of their relationship to the model.

 They are regarded as childobjects that are inserted into parent objects such as walls,
and so are still considered to form an enclosed volume (see Figure 4).

 A door or window can be assigned its own material properties (e.g., single-glazed
aluminium frame, hollow core door panel, etc.).

 When you have a door or opening leading between one zone and another, there’s no
need to “double-up” and model a door in each of the adjacent walls.

 Ecotect automatically accounts for the corresponding opening in the adjacent zone
Figure 4. Elements such as doors and windows share a child-parent relationship with
elements such as walls. Doors and openings leading from one zone to another don’t need to
be created twice
 Switch to different views of the model, such as orthographic or axonometric
projections, via the View menu.

 To get a clearer view of your model in its entirety, try clicking on the Visualise page
tab to the left of the main window. This shows the model in OpenGL (see Figure 5).

 You can use the Visualisation Settings control panel to adjust display options.

 Click back on the 3D Editor page tab and press F8 to return to the perspective view.

Figure 5. You can use the Visualise page tab to view your model in OpenGL.

Assessing Site Conditions

We can use this model to consider site conditions and orientation, and evaluate if the
proposed building envelope represents a suitable design response.

 Firstly, let’s tell Ecotect where the project is geographically located, and the
orientation of the site.
 Click on the Project page tab, which displays a summary of project information.
 Specify the location of the project by loading the Weather Data file.
 Figure 6 shows the location for this particular project specified as Perth, Western
Australia (click the Reload button to initialise the file), but there are many other data
files included with Ecotect from all around the world.
 You can also import your own climate data if necessary.
 To the right of this page, you can confirm if the latitude and longitude are correct,
and also set the time zone.
 Below this, you can specify which way is north, and the local terrain.
 This is used when performing thermal and ventilation calculations.
  Return to the 3D Editor page tab (note the north point shown on the modeling grid,
now indicating the building orientation) and then switch to a Plan projection via
the View menu. Then go to the Calculate menu and click onPrevailing Winds (see
Figure 7).

In the dialog box that appears, accept the default settings and click OK, and you will now see
the Ecotect model overlaid with prevailing wind data for the entire year, as shown in Figure
8. This allows us to see that most of the winds are low speed and mainly from an easterly,
and south, south-westerly direction. In order to maximise cooling using natural ventilation,
we would want to orientate living spaces and openings to take advantage of these winds.
if you need further information, such as what times of the day these winds are present, this
can be configured via the Prevailing Winds dialog box (see Figure 9). You can also view
other climate data in relation to your model, such as wind temperature, rainfall and relative
humidity. However, as different weather stations around the world have varying procedures
for recording climate data, the Ecotect climate data file may not contain all of this
information. Nonetheless, most will still contain sufficient data to be of value.

Figure 9. Ecotect includes a variety of other climatic data as well.

We can also begin examining the solar orientation and shading aspects of the model.
  While there are a number of programs that can display accurate shadows and shading in
a 3D model, there are a few analysis features unique to Ecotect in this regard.

 To reset the model view, press the F9 key, and then F8 to return to a perspective view.

 You may also want to resize the modeling grid to fit the model by clicking the Fit Grid
to Objects button.

 Now go to the Display > Shadowsmenu.

 This displays the shadows that would be cast by the building on the ground plane.

 Ecotect uses different shades of grey to differentiate between shadows and sunlight
penetrating or reflecting into a space.

 As can be seen in Figure 10, the proposed design has the kitchen, dining and living
spaces orientated north, providing good solar penetration into these spaces.

Figure 10. Displaying the shadows on the Ecotect model.

We can also analyze the shadows and shading for particular days.
 Based on the geographic location specified, Ecotect automatically works out key
analysis dates, such as the winter and summer solstice.

 Click the Set Current Time/Location button, and choose Winter Solstice, for

example, as shown in Figure 11.

 The shadows update automatically, and you can adjust the time to the left of this
button.
Figure 11. Ecotect records key analysis dates throughout the year, such as the winter and
summer solstice.

Ecotect can also project a 3D stereographic sun-path diagram onto the model, as shown in
Figure 12, which allows us to see the position of the sun in relation to the model.

 Click on the Shadow Settings control panel to the right of the main window.

 Check the Display Sun Path checkbox. 

 In the corresponding diagram overlay, click and drag the sun (or use the Up/Down
buttons to the right of the Time field in the toolbar) to interactively adjust the
shadows.

 Now also check the Annual Sun Path checkbox.

 You can adjust the time position of the sun as before, and hold downShift while you
drag the sun to change the date.
Figure 12. A sun-path diagram projected onto the Ecotect model can be a useful visual
display for planning reports and submissions.

 Reset the date and time to 12.00 June 21st (Winter Solstice for the southern
hemisphere), and uncheck the Display Sun Path and Annual Sun Pathcheckboxes.

 In the Shadow Settings control panel, click the View from Sun Posbutton, and then
click on the Visualise page tab.

 The view of your model is reorientated as if you are standing on the Sun itself,
looking back towards the Earth (see Figure 13).

 This allows you to visually analyze which surfaces are most exposed to the Sun at
different times of the year, which could be used to determine the optimum locations
for positioning solar panel arrays.

Figure 13. View

from Sun position
allows you to
gauge visually
which model
surfaces receive
the greatest solar
exposure for a
particular date and
time.

Lastly,
overshadowing of
adjacent
properties is something that often needs to be addressed in an early schematic design.

Under the Zone Management control panel, turn on the Outside zone.

Three plane objects have been used to represent the site and adjacent properties.

Select the two adjacent site objects, and under the Shadow Settings control panel, click
the Shaded button to designate them as shaded surfaces.

Now Ecotect only displays shadows on these objects, as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. After tagging the adjacent sites as shaded, projected shadows will only appear on
these objects.

From a quick visual analysis, we can clearly see there will be no overshadowing issues for
the property to the north, and that less than 50% of the southern property will be shaded at the
specified time and date.

However, if a more quantitative analysis was required, say for planning approval purposes,
this can be generated even at this early stage of conceptual modeling.

Select just the southern property, and go to the Calculate > Sun-Path Diagram menu.

In a new window, you will see a more conventional version of a stereographic sun-path
diagram, and in addition to this, the approximate shadow being cast onto the selected object.

Expand the Shading Mask section to the right of the diagram, and then click on
the Calculate Shading button.

Set the dialog box that appears as shown in Figure 15, and then click OK.

Figure 15. Settings for the overshadowing calculations.

After a brief calculation period, the shading mask for the selected object is displayed on the
sun-path diagram, along with a legend indicating the percentage of overshadowing that
occurs (see Figure 16).
In the bottom left hand corner, you can see that only around 23% of the adjacent site is
overshadowed by the proposed development.

In the main Ecotect window in the background, the test points are indicated with small green
dots. Increasing the accuracy increases the number of testing points used.

Figure 16. The shading mask generated for the southern site, showing what percentage of
overshadowing occurs on it.