Photo: Jørgen True

An Industrial PhD at Artelia will build upon our development of simulation tools, which make it easy to explore a myriad of solutions for an optimal building design with a low energy consumption. Indoor climate parameters will now be included in the equation, and the results will be distributed to our partners in a smarter way.

With the new Multivariable Building Simulations (MIBS) method, we established a platform for the BeDesigner tool, in which the design team can explore the entire solution spectrum when the optimal façade design is to be found. By making thousands of automated simulations, the complex interaction between everything ranging from the façade and ventilation solutions to the glass areas and room sizes is analysed.

The method can immediately show how an adjustment in the design will affect the other design parameters and what the impact will be on the energy consumption.

Nanna Dyrup Svane is the main person behind the Industrial PhD that will take this development one step further. The output will now include indoor climate parameters, such as the atmospheric indoor climate (CO₂), the thermal indoor climate (temperature) and daylight.

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BeDesigner includes the indoor climate require-ments for residential housing. However, we should also be able to find answers for more complex buildings. Even an office building with an atrium in the middle can be challenging if we are to comply with the requirements of the building regulations. Furthermore, many buildings are designed in accordance with different sustainability certification systems with even more demanding requirements. It is clear that far more advanced calculations are required if the indoor climate is to be inte-grated, and that will be an important part of my job.
Nanna Dyrup Svane
Nanna Dyrup SvaneSpecialist
Energy Design & Indoor Climate

Better and smarter communication
Nanna has been in the industry for 8 years and knows from experience that the distribution of the calculation results is often the greatest challenge. Nanna will therefore analyse and optimise the communication flow in which technical knowledge is exchanged.

Indoor climate calculations are an advanced topic and there is no doubt that an effort can be made to distribute the results more intuitively. In this respect, I would also like to look at how we can optimise and distribute the knowledge and measures we have concluded in our analysis to the parties who will use the results in their work. Today, communication is still based on PDFs to a large extent, and this often results in both duplicate work and misunderstandings. Among other things, we should start using the BIM model actively to share knowledge.
For The new SIMAC in southern Denmark, we used our specially developed simulation tool, MIBS, to create an optimal balance between aesthetics and the requirements for energy.
Architects C.F. Møller Architects and EFFEKT Arkitekter
Client Fonden Svendborg Maritime Uddannelsescenter

A link to BIM
As Nanna points out, one last important aspect of the PhD is to create a far better exchange of information between BIM models and indoor climate programmes, such as BSim. It should be possible to create automated and quality-assured data extraction from BIM models aimed at the specific simulation tools. On the other hand, we will be looking at how the results can be made more visible in the digital building models, thereby creating a common communication platform.

Hovedvejleder og koncernkompetencechef for Energidesign og Indeklima, Steffen Maagaard, ser store potentialer i projektet:

With MIBS, we laid the cornerstone for a paradigm shift that is necessary if we are to ensure the perfect balance between architectural visions and the increasing demands on energy consumption, sustainability and indoor climate. It is a tremendous benefit to be able to vary many design parameters simultaneously and thus map the entire creative scope. Nanna’s PhD will be an important step in this development, and her sharpened focus on an improved distribution of results and a better link to BIM will strengthen our position as the architect’s and client’s preferred sparring partner.
Steffen Maagaard
Steffen MaagaardCorporate Technical Director
Energy Design & Indoor Climate

The Industrial PhD project is a collaborative initiative between Artelia, Aalborg University and the Danish Building Research Institute, and it is supported by Denmark Innovation Fund.

Photo: Jørgen True