SBIR Phase I: Science-Based Networked Tools for Effective Design and Manufacture of Green Buildings and Green-Building Products

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project relates glare in the design of buildings. The construction industry is currently stifled by the problem of glare, given the limited ability of tools to provide immediate and rigorous analysis that could help users understand where, when, why, how much and how to remedy glare in their buildings. This SBIR project will create the first tool that enables users to automatically perform annual, whole-building glare analysis on their projects without having expertise in daylighting, modeling or simulation. This tool makes possible what was inconceivable before; glare analysis will undoubtedly be a part of the everyday design process of all buildings. Building owners and occupants will require glare analysis. Architects will be able to incorporate these studies during schematic design, and still meet schedule and budget constraints. Manufacturers will be able to refine their products to meet the glare specifications of architects. The market for this technology includes architects, sustainability and lighting consultants, and manufacturers of daylighting products, building owners/homeowners and educators. This tool will directly help make better day lit, energy-efficient buildings, and more importantly help reduce visual discomfort for all occupants who have learned to "accept" glare as a part of life. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a novel glare probe to advance the state of the art for glare analysis thousands fold, plus provide actionable information for manufacturers to specify their products on a range of design problems. Through the use of cloud computing, advanced algorithms in conjunction with user-input will be researched to highly streamline robust glare analysis on a building-wide scale. This probe will report back both interactive graphical maps as well as several metrics of performance. Users will be able to flexibly and quickly assign and compare different manufactured products. This technology will be used by manufacturer salespeople to easily and robustly incorporate their products into high-performance buildings. It also will be used internally by manufacturers for R&D purposes to evaluate and position their own products for sales and marketing, as well as for developing their next generation technologies. The specifier community of architects, consultants, and engineers will also benefit from these models since they can verify if their buildings will perform as designed. Building occupants will benefit from improved access to usable daylight and will have less reliance on electrical lighting.