A Design Optimization Tool for Building Energy Simulation

Modern advanced tools for building energy simulation provide great power in the hands of architectural designers but do not easily lend themselves to explore the combined effects of simultaneous variations of design parameters nor to compare the effects of alternative sets of design solutions. Nonetheless, the ever increasing computing power makes today an exploratory multi-parameter approach more and more viable as a design-supporting procedure, provided that adequate measures are taken to avoid an excessive growth in the amount of cases to be tested. The present paper reports about a software program named OPT, written by the author to control the ESP-r software tool with the objective to speed and make easier systematic explorations of the effects produced by real-life design parameter variations.