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Optimizing the built environment via simulations of building models hinges on standardizing data acquisition. In this research, we put forward distinct levels of detail for geometry and material inputs, specifically tailored for indoor daylight applications. We primarily focus on understanding the uncertainties arising from imprecise estimations of material optical properties and incomplete geometrical inputs in climate-based indoor daylight simulations. Employing a Monte Carlo approach, we analyzed six office and teaching spaces, creating 20 variations for each by altering geometrical completeness and material accuracy. The technique of excluding non-permanent objects below certain sizes in four graduated steps was used to derive and test the impact of various geometrical levels of detail. Our findings reveal that different levels of geometrical completeness lead to errors ranging from 1.08% to 18.05%. Additionally, a twofold increase in simulation time was noted when geometrical detail was enhanced relative to the most basic model. Errors stemming from imprecise definitions of material optical properties showed a normal distribution. The uncertainty in simulation outcomes showed a linear rise with increasing input material uncertainty, lying between 10% to 30%, depending on space configurations. We observed heightened uncertainty near openings, attributed to window transmittance effects. The research underscores that daylight predictions are markedly more sensitive to transmittance uncertainties than to those in reflectance, regardless of the window-to-floor ratio. These insights may help to guide a more efficient data acquisition process of indoor spaces for daylight simulations., Environmental & Climate Design, Urban Data Science

Smart buildings are equipped with automated control systems that provide a comfortable indoor environment, aiming simultaneously at energy savings. Control systems for shading devices applied in practice are mostly driven by a rule-based approach, that is usually tested under simplified conditions and hence its effectiveness in complex real-life cases is questionable. The present study develops an optimized glare-based control strategy for Venetian blinds in a real-life open-space building with totally transparent facades. The research is based on the case study of the Co-Creation Center at the TU Delft campus, which can host three different types of events: presentations, meetings and workshops. The control strategy is developed within Grasshopper, a tool for parametric and optimization problems. Radial Basis Function Optimization (RBFOpt) is utilized for the computation of the optimal blinds’ states. Within the developed control strategy, cylindrical illuminance (Ecyl) is used as a glare index, giving the opportunity to evaluate its performance. Results show that the optimized algorithm can improve the existing visual conditions in the building by an average of 80% for all activity types, although it leads to an average increase of 7% of the time when electric lighting is needed, in comparison to the current rule-based control. Finally, Ecyl displayed an overall agreement of 92.5% with DGP-based glare assessments, proving that in spaces with multiple windows and uncertain occupants’ view direction, a view-independent index can predict glare risks as well as a state-of-the-art view-dependent metric., Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Environmental & Climate Design, Applied Mechanics

User experience and satisfaction with the facade play a significant role in user comfort and energy efficiency of buildings. This paper explores the concept of User-Facade archetypes to inform the user-centred design of shading devices based on the perceived level of importance of different environmental domains at the workplace. A questionnaire was developed to collect data on users’ perceived level of importance of different environmental domains, user characteristics and other preferences. Based on the associated level of importance of the domains affected by shading devices (thermal conditions, access to daylight, access to outdoor view, privacy and glare mitigation), users were then clustered into eight different archetypes, which associated different "weights" to each comfort domain. The study also found a significant correlation between the associated level of importance and the reported frequency of interaction with shadings because of thermal comfort, glare mitigation or privacy. Overall, users that associated high levels of importance to several environmental domains also reported high perceived levels of importance for personal control at the workplace. Only one archetype reported low importance for personal control at the workplace. Further work is required to validate these archetypes by capturing actual user behaviour and preferences in real workplaces. However, these findings provide preliminary and valuable insights into the possibility of clustering users on their preferences and using this for informing a more user-centred design or operation of shading devices., Architectural Technology, Environmental & Climate Design

This paper explores the economic and social losses of buildings due to earthquakes and heat waves. The study focuses on a high-rise building consisting of a reinforced concrete structure and masonry/cladding facades, and designed for two different locations in Europe. By means of a numerical model, time-history non-linear analyses are carried out to estimate the probable maximum losses in terms of repair costs and injuries/fatalities. In addition to earthquake scenarios, the study conducts dynamic energy simulations and comfort analyses that consider local climate scenarios and extreme heat events. The energy analysis calculates the economic losses caused by weather-related power consumption while the impact on occupants is assessed in terms of discomfort hours. Results from the seismic and energy simulations are finally compared to quantify and discuss the impact of the two different extreme hazards on the building performance and their potential consequences., Architectural Technology, Environmental & Climate Design

Wat te doen als je prachtige gekromde glazen gevel onverwacht als vergrootglas blijkt te werken? Het fenomeen, dat al enigszins bekend was van de beruchte “Walkie Talkie” in Londen, is al eens eerder beschreven in Bouwfysica in 2018 [1]. Helaas kon dat artikel niet voorkomen dat ook in Nederland dit probleem vorig najaar plotseling optrad bij een nieuw gebouw dat op het punt stond opgeleverd te worden. Smeltende auto-onderdelen op het ondergelegen parkeerterrein, mogelijk gevaar voor bezoekers en een ongeruste opdrachtgever waren het resultaat. Parametrische tools en software voor simulatie van bezonning hielpen het ontwerpteam en de opdrachtgever om samen te zoeken naar de meest geschikte oplossing., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Applied Mechanics, Environmental & Climate Design

Climate-Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) methods have been validated against long-term measurements in laboratory settings and found to exhibit errors small enough to make such assessments useful for daylight performance prediction. However, real occupied spaces are affected by a higher number of uncertainties than laboratory or controlled conditions. This study aims at validating CBDM methods against measurements collected in an occupied classroom space, where a monitoring system based on High Dynamic Range Imaging was installed. Four vertical regions were identified on two of the room's walls, and mean illuminance was calculated for these regions at every time step, both from HDR images and from simulated results. Two simulation methods were evaluated: the 2-phase and the 4-component methods. Sun and sky conditions for the simulations were derived from simultaneous monitored irradiation measurements. Both simulation methods led to moderate over-prediction of HDR-derived results, when considering instantaneous illuminance means and when looking at long-term metrics (cumulative irradiation and Useful Daylight Illuminance). Wall regions exposed to more direct sky- and sunlight were characterised by smaller systematic errors (rMBE = 4%) but similar variance (r2 = 0.83) than regions situated at the back of the room (rMBE = 17–34% and rMAE = 27–37%). Further studies are needed to identify and separate the sources of such errors., Building Physics

The Erasmus+ project, entitled ?Digital Erasmus ? a roadmap to using building performance simulation to achieve resilient design? (DesRes), seeks to transform the learning experience of students in built environment disciplines using a continuous digital learning cycle. Three universities play a part in this project: Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and the University of Strathclyde (UoS), each developing and delivering a module to complete the learning experience in building simulation. This paper describes the aims and learning objectives associated with the workshops taught at TU Graz as part of the module dedicated to energy monitoring. These workshops tackle the complexity of working with large data sets, which commonly arise from energy monitoring research. In particular, the workshops aim to provide a practical understanding of how to identify, handle, reshape, clean up and evaluate important summary statistics from incomplete data sets. These are fundamental skills in building simulation where model validation and calibration are increasingly commonplace., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Building Physics

A key aspect of daylight modeling is the definition of material optical properties. Characterization of such properties in existing indoor spaces with current methods is a labour-intensive and time-consuming task, especially in surfaces with considerable visual complexity. Faster and more accurate estimations of such properties will lead to more efficient workflows. Towards this direction, the present work studied the feasibility of using two novel approaches i.e. illuminance-proxy and probabilistic image based material characterization methods for implementation in daylight modeling. These approaches are compared with two common techniques, namely the manual selection from a measured dataset and the use of illuminance/luminance measurements. According to the results, both novel techniques are able to predict spatiallyaveraged Daylight Autonomy, continuous Daylight Autonomy, and Useful Daylight Illuminance in 300-3000 lx range with less than 5% error, Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Building Physics

Aperture-based daylight modelling (ABDM) is a new building simulation paradigm founded on measures of an aperture's 'connectedness' to the sun and the external environment. At the planning level, there currently does not exist anywhere an evaluative schema which is equally applicable to measures of solar energy potential (for PV performance, overheating risk, etc) and measures of sunlight/daylight amenity (for daylight, well-being, connectivity/view, etc). ABDM addresses that shortcoming. This paper describes the latest development of ABDM which is the addition of an airmass factor in the computation of the sunlight beam index (SBI). This enhancement preserves the 'geometrical purity' of ABDM, but now airmass SBI can serve as a reliable proxy for direct sun irradiation totals derived from weather files., Environmental & Climate Design

This research gives an overview of the current comfort and energy performance, and optional future design of highly transparent and lightweight buildings. The transparent Co-Creation Centre in the Green Village at the TU Delft, has a combination of active and passive climate control measures. The aim of the research is to show how transparent buildings with a high glass/floor percentage (here 122 %) perform and how these could be optimized. An overview of the research project and system integration is presented, with the focus on energy, comfort and working of the BMS-system. Energy and comfort performances are measured and simulated. Validation has been executed of daylight, solar heat access, and thermal performances. A large Phase Change Material (PCM) buffer in the air handling unit reduces the heating and cooling demand. Making use of passive qualities of the outdoor and indoor air temperature and solar energy requires a more complex control strategy than usual. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy has been investigated and can optimize the energy consumption., Building Services, Building Physics, Team Bart De Schutter

The global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has forced universities to completely re-think their teaching concepts to provide safe, remote teaching of students off-campus. One of the challenges of this rapid transition is ensuring that the quality of the learning experience remains high and that students are able to engage and thrive in this new and predominantly digital environment. This project, entitled ‘Digital Erasmus - a roadmap to using building performance simulation to achieve resilient design’, responds to this context by seeking to transform the learning experience of students in built environment disciplines using a continuous digital learning cycle. This paper outlines the concept of the program and the learning objectives that it responds to, as well as some initial results highlighting the programs opportunity for students to work collaboratively and transnationally. The program is still in its infancy but it is hoped that it can serve as a template for similar future online courses that will promote safe, interdisciplinary and engaging collaboration amongst students from different universities., Building Physics

Climate-Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) methods have been validated against long-term measurements in laboratory settings and found to exhibit errors small enough to make such assessments useful for daylight performance prediction. However, real occupied spaces are affected by a higher number of uncertainties than laboratory or controlled conditions. This study aims at validating CBDM methods against measurements collected in an occupied classroom space, where a monitoring system based on High Dynamic Range Imaging was installed. Four vertical regions were identified on two of the room's walls, and mean illuminance was calculated for these regions at every time step, both from HDR images and from simulated results. Two simulation methods were evaluated: the 2-phase and the 4-component methods. Sun and sky conditions for the simulations were derived from simultaneous monitored irradiation measurements. Both simulation methods led to moderate over-prediction of HDR-derived results, when considering instantaneous illuminance means and when looking at long-term metrics (cumulative irradiation and Useful Daylight Illuminance). Wall regions exposed to more direct sky- and sunlight were characterised by smaller systematic errors (rMBE = 4%) but similar variance (r2 = 0.83) than regions situated at the back of the room (rMBE = 17–34% and rMAE = 27–37%). Further studies are needed to identify and separate the sources of such errors., Building Physics

Accepted Author Manuscript, Building Physics

Accepted Author Manuscript, Building Physics, Design Informatics

Accepted Author Manuscript, Building Physics

Accepted Author Manuscript, Building Physics, Design Informatics