Assessing energy, lighting, room acoustics, occupant comfort and environmental impacts performance of building with a single simulation program

This paper presents the developments, implementation and application of an extensive building representation which supports the holistic performance assessment of building performance within a single application. This new development supports various views of performance throughout the building life cycle in relation to performance domains such as energy consumption, lighting availability, occupant comfort (thermal, visual), room acoustics and the environmental impacts related to the construction materials and fuel streams over the whole building life span. To achieve this generic representation, the data model has three main features. Firstly, the geometry and physical model (i.e. the material composition of the geometrical elements) are decoupled to enable flexibility in the building description. Secondly, the physical model is structured to support the different building life cycle phases. Lastly, for each phase, the physical model comprises material and construction properties for each performance view. The corresponding data model has been implemented into ESP-r, an existing building simulation application, and its features have been extended in order to support room acoustics and environmental impacts. Finally, to demonstrate the applicability of the approach, a multiple-view performance assessment of an existing office building has been undertaken. It includes the assessment of the energy consumption, room acoustics, occupant comfort, and the environmental impacts. The simulation results have been compared with in situ measurements monitored in the building during the post-occupancy phase.