Brise Soleil Study - Revit Rendering
PROJECT STATEMENT:
The increasing demand and consumption of our world’s non-renewable energy sources, of which buildings represent 40%, has forced the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) community to look for new methods, processes, and tools to design and construct our built environment– an increasing awareness and implementation of sustainable practices has transformed the industry for the better.
One such approach, traditional its roots, is Passive Design - the art of using the building’s environmental and geographical context to ‘passively’ heat and cool a building. In addition, new computational technologies, including early conceptual energy modeling and building information modeling (BIM), have made it possible to simulate the life-cycle of a building to validate design responses prior to construction, thus saving time, money, and our precious natural resources.
The following project represents the start of an investigation into these new paradigms for the transformation of an existing building using the latest technology and traditional approaches to building design. With the aid of Autodesk Revit Architecture, each designer was tasked with developing a Brise soleil,or sun shade, to shield the building from the sun in the summer months andlet in the sun during the winter months, while still maximizing useable daylight for the internal functions of the building throughout the year. If successful, the Brise soleil will help to reduce the solar heat gain during the summer months and maximize the solar heat gain during the winter months, which, as a result, will reduce the corresponding required mechanical cooling and heating load of the building and save energy.
The increasing demand and consumption of our world’s non-renewable energy sources, of which buildings represent 40%, has forced the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) community to look for new methods, processes, and tools to design and construct our built environment– an increasing awareness and implementation of sustainable practices has transformed the industry for the better.
One such approach, traditional its roots, is Passive Design - the art of using the building’s environmental and geographical context to ‘passively’ heat and cool a building. In addition, new computational technologies, including early conceptual energy modeling and building information modeling (BIM), have made it possible to simulate the life-cycle of a building to validate design responses prior to construction, thus saving time, money, and our precious natural resources.
The following project represents the start of an investigation into these new paradigms for the transformation of an existing building using the latest technology and traditional approaches to building design. With the aid of Autodesk Revit Architecture, each designer was tasked with developing a Brise soleil,or sun shade, to shield the building from the sun in the summer months andlet in the sun during the winter months, while still maximizing useable daylight for the internal functions of the building throughout the year. If successful, the Brise soleil will help to reduce the solar heat gain during the summer months and maximize the solar heat gain during the winter months, which, as a result, will reduce the corresponding required mechanical cooling and heating load of the building and save energy.
