SEMPER-II: an internet-based multi-domain building performance simulation environment for early design support

Many existing building performance analysis methods and tools do not effectively encourage and facilitate iterative, multi-criteria, and multi-agenda building design development. SEMPER, which was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), is a building design and performance simulation environment that attempts to remedy these shortcomings. It is an active, multi-domain, space-based, object-oriented design support tool for integrated building performance computing. However, it has been developed as a “stand-alone” application. This paper discusses the key findings of a collaborative research project between National University of Singapore, Carnegie Mellon University and Temasek Polytechnic to modify and transform SEMPER prototype 1 into SEMPER-II (S2), as an internet-based computational design support environment in order to facilitate geographically distributed design collaboration. The working details of the multi-domain thermal simulation environment within S2 called the Thermal Suite were specifically discussed with illustrative case studies.