Building simulation visualization for the boardroom: an exploratory study

Abstract

Increasingly, companies strive to deliver project sustainability and indoor environments that are conducive to increasing human productivity in corporate buildings. Corporate environmental policies are underpinned by a strong nexus between business needs in an uncertain and resource-constrained world, societal awareness and governmental targets to decrease the economy's carbon footprint. Building performance simulation (BPS) is a key enabler for the realization of sustainable buildings, providing quantification of building performance for different design alternatives. This article explores how BPS results aid key investment decision-making in the boardroom regarding sustainable buildings. Findings indicate that BPS experts often exchange knowledge by selecting and visualizing information from larger data sets of BPS results. They may use sophisticated information visualization techniques to overcome perceived cognitive limitations and information overload in the boardroom. It concludes that taking BPS results into the boardroom is a specialist and critical undertaking.