HORIZONTV FEATURING BD+C: WATCH EPISODES ON DEMAND AT HORIZONTV

AutoBEM can run more than 200,000 energy models in an hour.

AutoBEM can run more than 200,000 energy models in an hour.

Within the next five years, the AE firm SmithGroup wants to be able to incorporate the highest level of energy efficiency into every project it designs and builds. But the challenge is selecting the right energy model from literally thousands of options.

“The number of buildings we need to touch, and the pace we need to do it, exceed what an individual could do in a lifetime,” says Stet Sanborn, engineering lead in SmithGroup’s San Francisco office.

To speed this process, SmithGroup has partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), whose Automated Building Energy Modeling software suite, better known as AutoBEM, has simulated the energy use of 123 million structures, or 98 percent of U.S. Buildings.

AutoBEM was developed using high-performance computing to process layers of imaging data with information about each building, such as its size, use, construction materials, and HVAC technologies. The goal was to create a digital twin of the nation’s buildings, says Joshua New, ORNL’s project leader.

Sanborn tells BD+C that SmithGroup got involved with this technology collaboration project 18 months ago, after responding to the lab’s request for proposal. After six months of planning, SmithGroup provided information for every building type it handles, including climate zones, footprints, orientation, and envelope construction. The modeling also took into account lighting and HVAC variations.

This project generated more than 200,000 building iterations and 250,000 energy models. The computation, which took less than an hour to complete, was equal to the output of one employee working full time for 365 years.

AutoBEM’s information was used to train an artificial intelligence tool that will allow SmithGroup to pre-simulate the energy impact of every design possibility for any building.

Sanborn says that these data sets are still pretty rudimentary, so they should benefit from ORNL’s plans to update its information this year. “We’re looking for much better resolution, so we can eventually have real-time and predictive feedback,” he explains.

In 2023, SmithGroup plans to train the AI bots to spot trends and choose the best energy-efficient iteration for a given project. Sanborn says his team has already been surprised by how the data has highlighted “the interaction of things” like glass U-values and wall R-values. More refined data, he predicts, should make these data sets more accessible and actionable. (Sanborn says that SmithGroup already has pre-simulated climate data for every market it builds in.)

The first new designs for which this energy modeling is likely to be applied could be for a civic or higher education building, says Sanborn, where no restrictions to sharing information exist.

ORNL’s partners such as SmithGroup and Google—which is using AutoBEM to improve its free Environmental Insights Explorer tool—have committed to sharing data sets created by using AutoBEM. Some data sets have already been posted, and Sanborn thinks that open-source access is important because “SmithGroup can’t build every building, as much as we’d like to. We don’t want to hold a secret sauce or limit everyone’s ability to drive efficiency in response to what is really a climate emergency.”

SmithGroup participated in the funding of AutoBEM, whose development, expansion and collaborations are also funded by DOE’s Office of Electricity, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Building Technologies Office and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The research team leveraged supercomputing resources from Argonne National Laboratory.

The city of Gainesville, Florida was recently recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Energy for an adopted ordinance that requires rental housing to receive a Home Energy Score during rental inspections.

More than seven billion square feet of project space is now being tracked using Green Business Certification Inc.’s (GBCI’s) Arc performance platform.

This course covers design considerations and cladding assembly choices for creating high-performance building envelopes — a crucial element in healthy, energy-efficient buildings.

As we enter the next phase of our fight against climate change, I am cautiously optimistic about our sustainable future and the design industry’s ability to affect what the American Institute of Architects (AIA) calls the biggest challenge of our generation.

Lisa Heschong, FIES, discusses her books, "Thermal Delight in Architecture" and "Visual Delight in Architecture," with BD+C's Rob Cassidy. 

The Department of Energy announced $39 million in awards for 18 projects that are developing technologies to transform buildings into net carbon storage structures.

Winthrop Center, a new 691-foot tall, mixed-use tower in Boston was recently honored with the Passive House Trailblazer award.

Touted as the nation’s first carbon-positive hotel, Populus recently broke ground in downtown Denver.

 By now, many business leaders are out in front of policymakers on prioritizing the energy transition.

When sourced from sustainably managed forests, the use of wood as a replacement for concrete and steel on larger scale construction projects has myriad economic and environmental benefits that have been thoroughly outlined in everything from academic journals to the pages of Newsweek.

The city of Gainesville, Florida was recently recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Energy for an adopted ordinance that requires rental housing to receive a Home Energy Score during rental inspections.

More than seven billion square feet of project space is now being tracked using Green Business Certification Inc.’s (GBCI’s) Arc performance platform.

This course covers design considerations and cladding assembly choices for creating high-performance building envelopes — a crucial element in healthy, energy-efficient buildings.

As we enter the next phase of our fight against climate change, I am cautiously optimistic about our sustainable future and the design industry’s ability to affect what the American Institute of Architects (AIA) calls the biggest challenge of our generation.

Each day, our editors assemble the latest breaking industry news, hottest trends, and most relevant research, delivered to your inbox.