www.buildingsandcities.org/journal-content/special-issues/trusting-building-performance-simulation2.html
Trusting Building Performance Simulation
As codes and regulations become stricter, is simulation the right tool for compliance as well as sketching performance to assist design?
This special issue examines whether building performance simulations can be trusted for their accuracy and reliability. An increasing urgency exists to provide a prediction of performance over the next 50-100 years. As carbon limits become more fixed on absolute performance, a consensus is needed on how to examine performance reliably and accurately – both for new buildings as well as interventions in existing buildings. Several different concerns are addressed pertaining to the building performance gap - particularly practices and expectations.
This special issue reports on quality assurance measures, case studies, user studies that address the development of trust in the performance calculations of designers. The performance gap is not only a problem of inaccurate models, but is partly a result of misguided expectations of what building performance simulation (BPS) tools can predict. As BPS outputs are the result of models that are approximations of reality, building codes need more appropriate performance metrics that test the robustness or reliability of performance, not compliance with some mythical ‘typical’ performance number.
The value of models is to ensure that time and money are not being invested on issues with little benefit to building occupants or investors. BPS has the potential to provide very detailed information that could allow code officials to quantity the risk that buildings might perform in a different manner than has been modelled. In order to achieve this goal, simulation experts need to be far more engaged with definition of and compliance with building energy performance. In addition, experts need to articulate these issues more clearly in order to manage expectations.
Guest editor: Michael Donn
Table of contents
Simulation and the building performance gap [editorial]
M. Donn
Building performance simulation for sense-making in architectural pedagogy
M. Bohm
Metrics for building component disassembly potential: a practical framework
H. Järvelä, A. Lehto, T. Pirilä & M. Kuittinen
Quantifying inter-dwelling air exchanges during fan pressurisation tests
D. Glew, F. Thomas, D. Miles-Shenton & J. Parker
Understanding shading through home-use experience, measurement and modelling
M. Baborska-Narożny, K. Bandurski & M. Grudzińska
Modelling site-specific outdoor temperature for buildings in urban environments
K. Cebrat, J. Narożny, M.
Baborska-Narożny & M. Smektała
Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content
Reorganising specification practice for component reuse: an exploratory study
S Gao, K Jones, J Xu & J Glass
Kitchen retrofits to support food practices and wellbeing
F J Andrews, A Sal Moslehian, E Warner & R Tucker
From strategy to delivery: a comparative analysis of MMC roadmaps
G Goldman, D Sorokine, F Suerich-Gulick, C Carbone & M Jemtrud
Thermal comfort, ventilation and mosquito-borne disease risk in Zanzibar hospitals
O Sloan Wood, J B Knudsen, K L Schiøler, E Lupenza, M Msellem & F Saleh
Reusing precast concrete elements in construction: assessing the economic conditions
O Vigren, H Westerlind & T Malmqvist
Institutional readiness for industrialised social housing in Vietnam
T Q Nguyen, B N Nguyen, T H Q To & Z Aziz
Prefabrication for housing retrofit: governance, innovation and resident experience
E Pikas, K Kuusk, P Pihelo, R Liias, J Pukk & T Kalamees
Reframing heat pump transitions: a care perspective
J van der Haer, R Schelwald & F de Haan
Urban informal settlements in Africa: transforming adaptation governance
K Buyana & H Sseviiri
Reusing concrete products in indoor environments: chemical hazard assessment
K Tähtinen, A Helin, E Parshintsev & H Hovi
Negotiating net-zero carbon: an ANT analysis of two buildings
L Schweber & M Green
Design for disassembly: a review of public policy proposals
O Vorobjev, U Uotila, T Joensuu & A Saari
Retrofitting Norwegian residential buildings: an archetype-based dynamic stock model
L S A Rousseau, S Amini, S Akin & E G Hertwich
Decolonising time: vernacular villages and the politics of heritage temporality
R Al-Rabady
Commutes to alternative workplaces: GHG emissions and physical activity
J Taylor, L Thoen, A Espinosa Mireles De Villafranca, P Anashin, J Vanhatalo, D Milián
Bernal & I Okkonen
Nine ‘myths’ about the building stock of Great Britain
S Evans, P Steadman, A Neto-Bradley, D Humphrey, R Liddiard,H Shamsi, J Palmer & G Simons
Critical Reconstruction Theory and the invention of post-disaster response
G Lizarralde, D Wachsmuth, F Özdoğan & M Cossu
Post-war reconstruction-as-knowledge practice: Fukui’s dual disaster recovery
A Y F Urushima & K Yamaguchi
Join Our Community
The most important part of any journal is our people – readers, authors, reviewers, editorial board members and editors. You are cordially invited to join our community by joining our mailing list. We send out occasional emails about the journal – calls for papers, special issues, events and more.
We will not share your email with third parties. Read more
Latest Commentaries
Anticipating Chronic Climate Risks
How can local authorities better anticipate and reduce chronic climate risks in the built environment? With 20 years' experience working in local authorities tackling climate change, Joe Baker considers the challenges facing local authorities to identify and manage climate risks, and asks: How do we get the leadership, skills, capacity and meaningful action needed?
Remote Sensing for Urban Development Policies
At the 2026 Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit Magnus Andersson, David Muthui & Reza Roodaki (Malmö University) argued that remote sensing should be a core evidence infrastructure for sustainable urban governance. Satellite derived and geospatial analysis can observe and monitor urban expansion, densification, land consumption, building form and material demand across jurisdictions and over time. A shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional sensing and analysis provides new data to inform policies for housing, land-use efficiency, disaster exposure, public space, resource efficiency and resilient construction.