Advanced Building Simulation

2 Malkawi and Augenbroe
users’ productivity, and others. Being able to realize this in dynamic design settings,
on novel system concepts and with incomplete and uncertain information is the prime
target of the next generation of tools. The integration of different physical domains
in one comprehensive simulation environment is another. Meanwhile, different interaction
and dynamic control paradigms are emerging that may change the way building
simulation is incorporated in decision-making. The new developments will
radically influence the way simulation is performed and its outputs evaluated. New
work in visualization, dynamic control and decision-support seem to set the tone for
the future which may result from recent shifts in the field. These shifts are apparent
in the move from
● the simulation of phenomena to the design decision-making;
● “number crunching” to the “process of simulation”;
● “tool integration” to “team deployment” and the process of collaboration;
● static computational models to flexible reconfiguration and self-organization;
● deterministic results to uncertainty analysis;
● generating simulation outputs to verification of quantified design goals, decisionsupport,
and virtual interactions.
Although these shifts and directions are positive indicators of progress, challenges do
exist. Currently, there is a disconnect between institutional (governmental and educational)
research development and professional software development. The severity
of this disconnect varies between different countries. It is due in part to the fact that
there is no unified policy development between the stakeholders that focuses and
accelerates the advancement in the field. This is evident in regard to the historical
divide between the architects and engineers. Despite the advancements in computational
developments the gap, although narrowing, is still visible. In addition, it must
be recognized that the building industry is, besides being a design and manufacturing
industry, also a service industry. Despite these challenges and the fact that many of
the abovementioned new shifts and directions have yet to reach their full potential,
they are already shaping a new future of the field.
This book provides readers with an overview of advancements in building simulation
research. It provides an overall view of the advanced topics and future perspectives of
the field and what it represents. The highly specialized nature of the treatment of topics
is recognized in the international mix of chapter authors, who are leading experts in
their fields.
The book begins by introducing the reader to recent advancements in building
simulation and its historic setting. The chapter provides an overview of the trends in
the field. It illustrates how simulation tool development is linked to the changes in the
landscape of the collaborative design environments and the lessons learned from the
past two decades. In addition, the chapter provides a discussion on distributed simulations
and the role of simulation in a performance-based delivery process. After this
overview and some reflections on future direction, the book takes the reader on a
journey into three major areas of investigations: simulation with uncertainty, combined
air and heat flow in whole buildings and the introduction of new paradigms for
the effective use of building simulation.
Simulation is deployed in situations that are influenced by many uncertain inputs and
uncertain modeling assumptions. The early chapters of the book take the reader through