Design With Energy
Schematic Design
Phase
Drawing as a Means of Design
Investigation
Graphic Rather than Numeric Input
Procedures
Energy Scheming and the Creative Process
Design With Energy
Energy Scheming deals with broad architectural concerns rather than narrow energy issues. Typically, designers design first and then think about energy. This application allows you to consider energy as soon as you start thinking about the building, when you are making your initial sketches that define the organization, massing and orientation of a building. These considerations are extremely important because early form, organizational and operational decisions determine a building's loads and the extent to which mechanical and electrical systems may be optimized. Early consideration of energy in design sets the stage for energy to be considered throughout the project.
The Gap
Most software for designers, whether analytical or presentational in purpose, requires as input a building which has already been designed, or at least developed to the point that it can be reduced to a set of clearly understood numbers or lines. This widens the gap between technical considerations and the creative process because it requires users to change from a designing mode to an evaluating mode. Energy Scheming allows integration between right-brain and left-brain modes of thinking because it takes over tedious calculations and sets out a methodical process within which the designer can continue to work intuitively with evaluative information.
If designers are able to sketch ideas in ways that encourage
experimentation and imagination and that also lead, without cognitive
interruption, to technical evaluation, then they can consider
"technical" questions along with compositional issues, instead of
separate from them.
Energy Scheming's user interface is designed to fit with the
mental processes, information structures and graphic methods a
designer uses at the beginning of the design process -- in the
schematic design stage. Schematic design proceeds very rapidly,
involving experimentation with many ideas and combinations of ideas.
In this first phase, designers work primarily in a synthesis mode,
not in an analysis mode. They consider broad and conceptual issues,
rather than detailed and specific ones. It follows that information
presented at this stage should be quick and easy to use. It should
also be presented in a way that is generative of architectural form
and that helps the designer understand how the forms suggested by
energy concerns fit with the forms suggested by other architectural
issues, such as composition or structure.
Drawing as a Means of Design
Investigation
Energy Scheming is centered around drawing as the primary means of
design investigation. Its non-hierarchical organization allows the
user to concentrate on any aspect of the architectural problem in any
order. The act of drawing is the means, not the end, of architectural
design investigation -- it is a "conversation" between the designer
and the paper. An architect does not imagine a completely thought-out
design and then draw it up, but rather proposes an idea graphically,
gradually using the evolving graphic image to stimulate the brain to
reorganize connections and make associations not consciously included
in the original idea. The designer then builds on ideas by
reiteratively drawing and inspecting the image. This "discovery by
drawing" is fundamental to creative design thinking.
Graphic Rather than Numeric Input Procedures
Conventional energy software requires the user to type in numbers
in order to describe a building. Energy Scheming supports the graphic
method of design thinking by allowing you to define the building's
geometry graphically. For example, once you develop a building to a
rudimentary stage, you then create building "specifications" using a
digital tape measure. This graphic takeoff procedure operates within
an object-oriented drawing environment.
You communicate with Energy Scheming about architectural elements,
rather than just energy-related elements. Thus you can get an energy
evaluation of a proposed design -- even if it is rudimentary --
without putting in prematurely detailed or numeric descriptions of
those building parts which are normally described qualitatively at
early design stages.
Also, you are not required to specify details about the building,
such as the emissivity of materials, that do not influence building
form.
Note: Because of this imprecision in details, we are careful not to imply more significance than is warranted by our schematic-level energy evaluation.
Energy Scheming can provide you with an energy evaluation of your
building quickly because it makes "assumptions" about the building
based on four sets of default data:
You can provide all of this information or only portions of it, which
allows you to rely on defaults for some information, such as climate,
but carefully define other elements, such as windows.
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About Energy Scheming - main
page
Energy Scheming
Conceptual Overview
Energy Scheming General
Information
Energy Scheming Guided
Tour
Energy Scheming Manual.pdf (Adobe Acrobat version)
Energy Scheming Manual.html (Web Browser version