Emanuele Naboni KADK Copenhagen, Denmark
FROM ‘SINGLE PROBLEM’ TO HOLISTIC TOOLS
Available simulation tools have been developed to deal with one isolated environmental issue. The explosion of such digital tools for environmental analysis has made it easier than ever to ‘do less bad.’ Measuring the damage we do today and reducing that of tomorrow is not yet trivial, but there are countless software packages and metrics available to help [6].
These tools relate to either a building/districts’ energy performance;
or the reduction of operational and embodied energy consumption and emissions; or the optimisation of indoor thermal comfort and visual comfort; or the modelling of flows (e.g. water, air) around and inside buildings. Other tools are dedicated to model outdoor thermal comfort and air pollution patterns. More recently, tools are beginning to couple diverse environmental problems in a holistic framework. Most typically, these tools integrate energy simulation, daylighting, and embodied energy calculations. However, as Alexander Jacobsen explains in his section,regenerative design holds designers to a higher standard, and actively improving environmental and human health requires more than an arsenal of tools. Regenerative design requires a vision greater than the classic topics proposed by green certification rating systems.
Regenerative design calls for tools that are open to being customised by users, beyond the typical architectural sciences problems, in order to respond to a set of performance targets such as those linked to the local ecosystem and to human health.
To explain the shift, it is no longer conceivable to simply model the impact of design on the ecosystem, or the impact of design on health. In regenerative design, it is necessary to couple models of one or more variables of the ecosystem (e.g. local climate, local water cycles, the behaviour of other species, natural patterns of vegetation growth) and of people (e.g. behaviours, physiology).
This further step in the integration of simulation domains and customization of environmental issues is made possible by parametric simulations.
PARAMETRIC REGENERATIVE DESIGN
Parametric design is a process based on algorithmic thinking that enables the expression of parameters and rules that, together, define, encode and clarify the relationships between design intent and design response. It is this relationship that a parametric digital environment is supposed to uncover in order to inform the design and allow it to be optimised quantitatively, and in an iterative manner. New environmental parametric plugins pop up every day, thereby allowing the evaluation of the multi-disciplinary environmental and health related issues of regenerative design.
Theodore Galanos elaborates on this concept in his contribution discussing the opportunity of parametric design when used to produce design solutions that are attuned to the environment by mimicking natural patterns via the use of optimisation techniques.
One of the tools that have gained prominence in the field of parametric simulation is the visual programming tool Grasshopper.
Grasshopper is a graphical algorithm editor tightly integrated with Rhino’s 3-D modelling tools. Unlike RhinoScript, Grasshopper requires no knowledge of programming or scripting, but still allows designers to build from simple to awe-inspiring solutions. Of all of the available Grasshopper’s environmental plugins, Ladybug Tools is among the most comprehensive, connecting Rhino interfaces to validated environmental simulation engines. The Ladybug Tools family of plugins includes Ladybug for climate data, Honeybee for daylighting, energy modelling and thermal modelling, Dragonfly for large-scale climate and urban heat island effects, Butterfly for CFD analysis, and Ironbug for HVAC modelling. As such, Rhino, Grasshopper and Ladybug Tools are interconnected.
Rhino defines the geometry of the model, Grasshopper is used to change and optimise this geometry parametrically, and Ladybug tools are used to further evaluate the environmental performance of these geometric iterations. Chris Mackey, the co-developer of Ladybug Tools, discusses in his section how Ladybug Tools are evolving based on the users’ needs of dealing with several domains and scales of environmental design. In this chapter, Pietro Florio presents tools that support the assessment of the visual quality of urban elements. Further examples of originally developed plugins that leverage the capabilities of Ladybug Tools are presented in the chapter titled ‘Climate and Energy’.
COUPLING ARCHITECTURAL AND NON-ARCHITECTURAL DOMAINS
Grasshopper allows the geometrical co-modelling of urban, natural environments and buildings, which are coupled with equations belonging to the domains of, among others, ecosystems, climatology, material sciences, synthetic biology, biology, botany, human comfort and physiology. With the use of Grasshopper, architects can model a large number of design options by linking problems and performances belonging to various disciplinary domains, enabling the handling of the complexity of environmental issues. The examples included in Terri Peters’ section demonstrate the capability of dealing with the multifaceted design problem by discussing some of the approaches of the Danish architectural office 3XN. One example is the Circular House project of 3XN that harvests data at the building component level, generating information that can inform future projects.
Grasshopper also provides access to information on geometries, materials and operations from domains that are not typical to the architectural disciplines. A wide range of regenerative digital design tools is presented in this chapter, including those used to develop strategies for biomimicry, positive energy buildings and the design of green-blue infrastructure. The field of application ranges from the single building to entire parts of the city. As regenerative design continues to evolve, the process is showing itself to be increasingly holistic, but also highly complex.
The application of a broad spectrum of plugins representing various disciplines requires the integration of multiple types of knowledge. It is therefore crucial that interdisciplinary pedagogies are implemented to educate software users to make architecture transcend disciplinary boundaries, as explained in the contribution of Clarice Bleil de Souza.
INTEGRATING MEASURED DATA IN SIMULATION
There is a boundless set of unexplored possibilities to integrate Grasshopper Plugins into different regenerative design practices and to appropriately negotiate new design targets. Furthermore, parametric tools allow for the incorporation of measured data (those, for instance, coming from sensors) or sets of climatic data, pollution levels, people’s behaviour, or even human physiological data. It is necessary to calibrate and validate simulation models by means of collected data. In this regard, Emanuele Naboni discusses the possibility of integrating big data in design. Also, Dario Cottava exemplifies how smart mobile data and microprocessors could underpin ubiquitous computing (e.g. networking, artificial intelligence and wireless computing) to induce behavioural changes that could co-improve comfort and environmental quality. He presents three projects, taking into account the inhabitants, concerning indoor and outdoor environment behavioural change, while allowing technological devices and computers to vanish into the background. Finally, Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska and Hanna Obracht-Prondzynska map a series of examples related to the use of Big Data in an urban context.
THE PEDAGOGY OF PARAMETRIC ENVIRONMENTAL SIMULATION
The previous generation of mono-focused tools, which were described above, are ‘black box’ engines. Thus, accessing their code is complicated. As Chris Mackey notes in his contribution to this chapter, ‘monolithic, isolated tools often hinder the learning process of the modeller and can prevent him or her from reaching a deeper understanding of the underlying components and assumptions of a computer simulation’. Conversely, Grasshopper is a transparent, open source, and customizable set of python codes. The old generations of tools raise the question of the balance between what tools can offer in terms of education, and what knowledge and competencies designers need to use them [7, 8]. These questions are more straightforwardly answered in the case of parametric tools. The visual programming nature of Grasshopper allows designers to develop their computational literacy: either they understand how inputs, processing and output works, or they will not be able to use the tool. Environmental plugins such as Ladybug Tools, due to their logical, and well- visualised structure, provide a complete understanding of the modelled environmental problem.
BIM FOR RATING SYSTEM COMPLIANCE, PARAMETRIC PLUGINS FOR REGENERATIVE DESIGN IDEATION
It is not possible to talk about software tools for sustainable design without reflecting on how Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be a complementary tool. There is a fundamental distinction between BIM software tools and Grasshopper for Rhino and its plugins. BIM implies the creation of detailed 3D geometries and a very significant amount of data information. BIM is functional for final phases of design, when the analysis of large datasets, such as those of LCA calculations, is required. Rhino is a free-form tool that can work with fewer details, and Grasshopper can be applied to models that are less data-rich, which makes it suitable also for the early phase of design development.
BIM configuration enables the connection with one type of building performance simulation tool at a time such as energy, daylighting and LCA tools. This can be useful when a project is crystallised in its construction details, and the compliance with the rating system such as LEED needs to be proven. BIM has several semi-automated processes for rating system certification.
Conversely, parametric visual programming tools enable different performance assessment methods to be customised and connected with an ever-evolving building geometry. The designer can tailor new sets of broad, holistic regenerative design targets by programming and linking new sets of relationships to simulation engines or an entirely new set of equations.
This opens new possibilities not only to explore integrated regenerative performance but also to mimic and find inspiration in existing natural systems and processes (biomimicry and biophilia), which can be described in a new set of relationships.
Recently, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques have been integrated into the Grasshopper environment, allowing for a design that follows the logic of living organisms: the principles of biological evolution can apply. With Grasshopper, the tool then becomes part of the methodology that frames aspirational goals, guides innovation and encourages ideation.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Coleman, M.F. Touchie, J.B. Robinson, T. Peters ‘Rethinking performance gaps: A regenerative sustainability approach to built environment performance assessment’, Sustainability 10 (12), 2018.
[2] Naboni E, The Future of Building Simulation, a section in the book FutuRestorative: Working Towards a New Sustainability, RIBA, ISBN 9781859466308
[3] Naboni E, Sustainable design teams, methods and tools in international practice. Detail Green, Issue 1, May 2014 ISSN: 1868-3843
[4] Naboni E, New Tools for Designers, in Edwards B, Rough Guide to Sustainability. A Design Primer, 4th Edition - RIBA Publishing, 2014 - ISBN 978-1-85946-507-3
[5] Naboni E. Environmental Simulation Tools in Architectural Practice. 29th PLEA Conference, Munich, Germany, 2013. ISBN 978-2-7466-6294-
[6] Peters, B. and Peters T. Computing the Environment: Digital Design Tools for the Simulation and Visualization of Sustainable Architecture, John Wiley and Sons (Chichester), 2018.
ISBN 1119097894
[7] AlSaadani, S. and Bleil De Souza, C. 2018. Performer, consumer or expert? A critical review of BPS training paradigms for building design decision- ‐making. Journal of Building Performance Simulation (10.1080/19401493.2018.1447602)Bleil de Souza, C. and Tucker, S. Guest editorial: Special Issue on Building Performance Simulation and the user. Journal Of Building Performance Simulation 2019Nn
[8] Bleil De Souza, C. and Tucker, S. 2015. Thermal simulation software outputs a conceptual data model of information presentation for building design decision making. Journal of Building Performance Simulation (10.1080/19401493.2015.1030450)
Designers are grappling with the challenges of designing regenerative buildings, but it is difficult to know where to start.
As Sobek states: ‘We lack even basic things like data calculation methods and basic knowledge about sustainable building design…
We have no methods for the design and construction of truly recyclable buildings… The list of missing knowledge is long’ [1].
Nevertheless, some offices are treating these challenges as creative opportunities. Three examples by the Danish architecture office 3XN and their research and design team GXN are presented:
first, a full-scale demonstration project, Circular House, which uses data and digital design tools to enable building components to be more easily recycled; second, examples of early-stage design simulation work on Swedbank office headquarters, which provided feedback about the performance of spaces before its construction; and third, the ongoing environmental monitoring project at Green Solution House, which collects and visualizes data about the building in use to offer insights about how people use space.
BETTER USE OF DATA – DESIGN FOR DISASSEMBLY
Regenerative design can be defined as enabling social and ecological systems to maintain a healthy state and evolve [2], and within this approach, designers must not only search for the potential to minimise the adverse impacts of designs but must also focus on positive impacts that buildings can have on the well- being of people and the natural environment. These requirements mean that better software tools and digital workflows are needed to simulate and evaluate early stage design decisions to enable feedback into the design process. There is also a creative possibility: the development of new digital tools and methods of simulating can lead to new and improved kinds of architecture that can be longer lasting. For example, Danish architecture office 3XN and their research and design team GXN have developed a full-scale demonstration project using data and digital design tools to enable building components to be more easily recycled, thereby providing designers with a greater range of options and facilitating the move towards a circular economy for buildings [3].