Streamlining Green Building Design - Developing the Sustainable Design Suite

This project¿s intent is to enhance the Green Building Studio web service to incorporate various data and analyses that enable architects and other building designers to design sustainable buildings much more cost effectively. Today¿s building designers are struggling to design sustainable buildings and this solution is designed to make that task much easier. This enhanced service will be called the Sustainable Design Suite. The Green Building Studio web service currently integrates today¿s leading 3D-CAD applications including Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Autodesk Revit Building, Autodesk Building Systems, and Graphisoft ArchiCAD and provides immediate whole building energy analysis using DOE-2.2. The analysis features that were determined to be feasible to enhance the service include high-resolution local weather generation for the building site to enable accurate natural ventilation studies, rain harvesting analysis, photovoltaic analysis, and building water use analyses. The generated local weather data will also enhance the current whole building energy analysis by using more appropriate weather files. Green Building Studio, Inc. also determined that is should enhance its current product relevancy engine to include green product specific traits. Key to a usable solution is the interface for the user and for that purpose various approaches for communicating wind as it pertains to the building were designed as well as a design advisor to better assist the user with answering the questions related to improving their design as it relates to resource use. The features designed are in demand by the respondents of the web survey, and the market research indicated that these users would pay for these features. Green Building Studio, Inc. fully intends on incorporating these features into the Sustainable Design Suite and leveraging its significant market connections to accelerate these sustainable building analyses throughout the United States.