A high-performance multi-scale modular-based green design studio platform for building and urban environmental quality and energy simulations

Abstract

Buildings play a significant role in global energy consumption and carbon emissions, representing 40% of energy use and 36% of CO₂ emissions. The indoor environmental quality (IEQ) within these structures is crucial for ensuring occupant health and comfort. However, achieving a healthy and comfortable indoor environment frequently results in increased energy demands. In response to this deficiency, this study builds a modular-based integrated platform called Green Design Studio (GDS) designed for the preliminary phases of multi-scale building design and urban planning. The GDS platform combines Rhino-Grasshopper and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), embedded with various plugins and parallel computing to facilitate rapid assessments and visualizations of IEQ, outdoor air pollution, and energy efficiency. It adopts a modular strategy for analyzing building and urban components across different scales, including site analysis, space planning, occupancy patterns, building enclosures, and service systems. Measurement data derived from complex building scales are employed to calibrate the platform's effectiveness. This calibration is subsequently scaled up to urban extents and integrated with parallel computing to achieve rapid feedback. Such capabilities underscore the efficacy of the GDS platform, marking a significant advancement in high-performance building design tools that effectively combine ease of use with comprehensive and scalable performance analysis.