Abstract
To design a High-Performance Building (HPB), a performance goal should be clearly set from very early design phases, and then a decision path of what performance measures have been chosen in the past stages and shall be chosen in a later stage should be visible. In particular, for small- and mid-sized HPBs that are constructed with a smaller budget, if applicable performance measures are subjective to change, supplementary design costs can increase due to intermittent performance evaluations. To help this situation, we are developing a design expert system for small- and mid-sized buildings that pursues a balance between economic value and energy performance. The economy rule base suggests the most economic building volumetry and form in view of the site context, while the energy rule base suggests a series of energy-sensitive design variables and their options. Based on these rule bases, the expert system presents multiple design decision paths. The design decision support model of the inference engine helps stakeholders choose a preferred design path out of multiple paths, compare the paths, trace back the paths, and effectively revoke past decisions. An actual small retail and office construction project was chosen as a test case to compare the utility and robustness of the pilot system against the conventional design practice. In case of a rather risky design change scenario, the decision-making using the pilot expert system outperforms the conventional practice in terms of selecting designs with a good balance between economic value and energy performance. In addition, it was easier for users of the pilot system to forecast risks upon critical design changes and, in turn, to identify reasonable alternatives.
Highlights
As the desire for High-Performance Building (HPB) in the construction sector has been increasing, Korean authorities have assigned minimum energy performance requirements for larger and public buildings [1,2], resulting in an increase in the number of new built HPBs
To design an HPB, a performance goal should be clearly set from very early in the design stages, and a decision path of what performance measures have been chosen in the past stage or will be chosen in a later stage should be visible
For small- and mid-sized HPBs with a smaller budget, more emphasis is placed on economic value, because the client who was interested in the earlier phase of the construction project may give up on performance enhancement; as design and supplementary costs are increasing, due to many intermittent performance evaluations and their complexity, initial costs can be way off the budget even prior to the onset of construction
Summary
As the desire for High-Performance Building (HPB) in the construction sector has been increasing, Korean authorities have assigned minimum energy performance requirements for larger and public buildings [1,2], resulting in an increase in the number of new built HPBs. At the same time, the need to analyze the economic feasibility of whether small- and medium-sized buildings can be built as HPBs has increased gradually. Without the setup of performance measures from the planning phase and a clear decision path about what performance measures are selected as design progresses, the initial cost will be excessive due to contingency or the result will be a design draft that abandons the performance goals due to the high investment
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