A computational intelligence decision-support environment for architectural and building design: CIDEA

Environmentally friendly and comfortable buildings are a much sought after goal in today's architectural practice. In order to improve energy consumption of buildings without sacrificing indoor comfort, careful consideration of design decisions is needed. Simulation tools provide a solution to one aspect arising from this need, namely the requirement for accurate quantitative results. On the other hand, the complexity of the real-world design problems in question calls for decision support tools that integrate, in addition to simulation, optimization, analysis, and modeling. The aim of the paper is to present ongoing work on the development of such a tool. The focus of the tool is on abstraction of the technical complexity, while maintaining a sufficient level of flexibility. The tool is designed according to an integrated workflow beginning from sampling, data analysis, model creation and testing, up until the final analysis of the optimization results. We present the architecture of the platform, as well as its application in two case studies, one focusing on the design of an office tower, and one on the design of a sustainable facade. Results from qualitative usage cases indicate favorable performance in supporting decision-making.