Recent advances in SEMERGY: A semantically enriched optimization environment for performance-guided building design and refurbishment
The SEMERGY project explores the utility of semantic web technologies toward populating the required input data for performance based building design optimization. A major portion of the required information (e.g. material properties, climatic data and standards, etc.) exists on the internet in extensive, yet ill-structured…
A comprehensive building model for performance-guided decision support
This paper reports on a specific effort within the ongoing research and development project SEMERGY. This project is geared toward the development of a performance-guided decision making environment for building design and retrofit. A multi-objective optimization environment requires a dynamic representation of the building, which…
An ontology-aided optimization approach to eco-efficient building design
Despite the advances in development of building performance simulation tools, their potential for performance-guided design has not been sufficiently exploited within the design community. This is in part due to the complexity of data accumulation for simulation purposes and the elaborate data entry modalities of…
Improving The Usability Of Energy Simulation Applications In Processing Common Building Performance Inquiries
Building performance simulation tools must be supplied with large amounts of information. Conventional approaches to gathering such information are often cumbersome and time-consuming. Hence, opportunities for in-depth simulation-supported exploration of design and retrofit options may not be optimally exploited. Thus, efforts are necessary to support…
Exploring the Utility of Semantic Web Technology in Building Performance Simulation
The simulation-based assessment and evaluation of alternative building design and retrofit options requires large amounts of information. Thus, efforts are necessary to support the process of data search and collection, such that building models for performance evaluation routines and applications could be efficiently populated. The…
SEMERGY: Semantic Web Technology Support for Comprehensive Building Design Assessment
This paper explores developmental opportunities toward effective evaluation environments for comparative assessment of alternative building design and retrofit options. Such options are to be benchmarked in view of their functional, ecological, and economical performance. Thereby, multiple use cases are to be accommodated, involving a) novice…
Using Semantic Technologies for Energy-Efficient Building Planning
The Directive 2002/91/EC of the European Parliament requires member states to calculate the energy performance of buildings with the overall goal of reducing their energy consumption. Existing tools for the calculation of building energy efficiency provide good results in calculating the energy level of a…