www.buildingsandcities.org/journal-content/special-issues/trusting-building-performance-simulation2.html

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

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Energy Sufficiency in Buildings and Cities