Passive Facade Design Strategies Using FenestraPro

Climate Consultant: Dublin, Ireland

We’ve been playing with a great tool recently called Climate Consultant that allows designers to understand the resources of their unique local climate and how it might influence the performance of their buildings, before putting pen to paper. It provides simple passive design strategy guidelines that can be applied as designers use FenestraPro to optimize the building design to yield huge energy savings. Let’s look at an example!

If we take a site in our hometown of Dublin, Ireland and input some basic data, Climate Consultant will display a psychrometric chart, with each dot representing the temperature and humidity of each of the 8760 hours per year. Different passive Design Strategies are represented by specific zones on this chart. Climate Consultant 4.0 analyzes the distribution of this psychrometric data in each Design Strategy zone to create the unique list of Design Guidelines, with the most effective passive heating or passive cooling strategies for that climate zone.

From there, FenestraPro provides a simple list of priorities for the designer to consider as they develop conceptual or schematic designs. But crucially, using FenestraPro can quantify the impacts of some of the highest priority advice. For example, for passive solar heating face most of the glass south to maximize winter sun exposure, we can quantify the appropriate wall-to-window ratio and optimize WWR to South to maximize exposure  to reflect this.  

We can ‘design appropriate overhangs to fully shade in summer’.

We can select from a range of different glass types to provide double pane high performance glazing (Low-E)  on west, north and east, but clear on south for maximum passive solar gain.

Other climate zones may have further advice related to the façade such as controlling and quantifying internal overheating. 

And accounting for solutions such as higher performing glazing specification or shading devices, we can quantify and understand outline daylighting performance. We can organise floorplans and programming so winter sun can penetrate into daytime spaces with specific functions,while also accounting for shading and glass specification.  

CONCLUSION

So, by understanding the climate, identifying the key design strategies, and using FenestraPro to develop these strategies towards key design decisions, architects can quickly optimize their envelope.  Furthermore, we can understand the impact these performance metrics will have on the aesthetic of the envelope, and how specific climates will affect architectural designs.   

ABOUT FENESTRAPRO

FenestraPro is the leading façade design platform that supports the design and construction of beautiful, high-performing facades. Our integrated platform identifies and applies the optimal geometry, material selection, and fabrication information. The platform seamlessly integrates into BIM design and construction workflows while proven to:

• eliminate the risk of late-stage redesign;
• demonstrate local code compliance;
• use data calculations in real-time;
• integrate into BIM workflows.

Trusted by global leaders in green building design, FenestraPro enables designers to control overall thermal performances and aesthetic design to deliver sustainable, high-performing facades.