The value of design strategies applied to energy efficiency

Advanced design strategies supported by iterative engineering performance calculations expand the number of alternatives designers can analyze by orders of magnitude. Yet, in the face of vast, under-constrained design challenges with wide ranging and sometimes ill-defined implications related to sustainability, it is not possible to replace building design with automated search. The purpose of this paper is to assist designers in their selection of strategies that have been shown to be effective in promoting sustainability. This paper applies and extends the design exploration assessment methodology (DEAM) to compare the value of distinct design strategies. The authors use DEAM to demonstrate that designers face non-trivially distinct challenges, even in the well-defined arena of design for energy efficiency. They next evaluate and compare the effectiveness of strategies such as point-analysis, screening, trend analysis, and optimization. They identify associated process costs, and extend DEAM to assess the relative value of information that each strategy provides for a given challenge. Findings empirically rank six strategies for two challenges and demonstrate the relatively high value of trend analysis for energy-efficient design. The implication of the findings is that advanced computer analysis strategies should be pursued to support high performance, energy-efficient design. Such conclusions motivate future research to assess the value of various strategies in the context of the broad and qualitative fields of sustainable design and development.