Capturing the views of architects about building performance simulation to be used during design processes

Abstract

In the past 30 years, much effort has been directed to make building performance simulation become inherent in architectural practice. Anecdotal evidence however shows that it still a long way for this goal to be achieved. This paper presents the outcome of a survey conducted in Australia, India, the US and the UK, to investigate difficulties that architects have to overcome in their day-to-day practices and identify the reasons why using building performance simulation, regardless how friendly the tools are, is still not and may never be in the mainstream of their practices. Based on the survey, the paper proposes a number of recommendations to overcome this challenge in line with IBPSA’s vision on bridging the gap between research and practice.