Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

The project achieved some major milestones. Cooperating withseveral project partners, including academic bodies, city plannersand a number of architectural and consulting companies, the teamdeveloped a generic model for the assessment and optimisationof home design and renovation. The intention was to reduce thedistance between architects and existing complex software tools,making the manipulation of vital design data easier and moreunderstandable. Basic physical laws represent boundaries thatare programmed into the modelling software. Then, users caninput design parameters, including volume and area, climatedata, construction type and quality, heating and cooling systemcharacteristics and operational features.And there’s moreThe team also developed two detailed reference building physicalmodels, simulating a typical building targeted for renovationin the city of Stuttgart. ‘These models will be extremely usefulto designers during the building energy certifi cation process,’says Dr Rabenseifer. ‘The result should be a signifi cantimprovement in the quality of renovation proposals and areduction in the time necessary for the preparation of energycertifi cates.’ Meanwhile, he affi rms, computational accuracywill be maintained, or even improved.Finally, the project team developed a similar simulation modelto aid in the renovation of a large grammar school in Slovakia.This particular model enables designers to assess the renovationprocess from a broad variety of viewpoints. This includes theability to calculate daylight availability, summer overheatingand shading effects, heating and cooling energy demand, theeffects of natural ventilation and fi re safety parameters. One ofthe key achievements for the project was to see this simulationtool used in a demonstration of best practices in the renovationdesign of public buildings.‘Our new models make it possible to perform a high number ofcalculations very quickly, while easily, even automatically, varyingany number of selected parameters,’ Dr Rabenseifer adds.Boosting careers, winning contractsDuring the project, all Marie Curie Fellows obtained extensivetraining in computer-aided modelling and programming, signifi cantlyimproving their skill bases and solidifying their future prospectsin an important research fi eld.After they returned to their home institutions, the Fellows tookpart in the development of physical models and templates in126