SFU Carbon Talks Dialogue - 2 Degrees: The Built Environment and Our Changing Climate

SFU Carbon Talks Dialogue – 2 Degrees: The Built Environment and Our Changing Climate

Simon Fraser University Carbon Talks was hosting a dialogue with Cole Roberts, acclaimed author of “2 Degrees: The Built Environment and our Changing Climate” last month. Here is the video: Cole Roberts leads the energy and resource sustainability business in Arup’s San Francisco office. Cole’s experience ranges from climate positive...
The Living Building Challenge is the 2012 Winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge

The Living Building Challenge is the 2012 Winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Each year a distinguished jury awards a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. The Living Building Challenge, a building standard framework and certification program, is the winner of the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Congratulations and...
Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy

Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy

In this intimate talk filmed at TED’s offices, energy theorist Amory Lovins lays out the steps we must take to end the world’s dependence on oil (before we run out). Some changes are already happening — like lighter-weight cars and smarter trucks — but some require a bigger vision.
DIVA-for-Rhino Version 2.0 Released

DIVA-for-Rhino Version 2.0 Released

DIVA-for-Rhino is a highly optimized daylighting and energy modeling plug-in for the Rhinoceros – Nurbs modeler. The plug-in was initially developed at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and is now distributed and developed by Solemma LLC. DIVA-for-Rhino allows users to carry out a series of environmental performance...
Saul Griffith on Energy Literacy - Green:Net 2011 Slides

Saul Griffith on Energy Literacy – Green:Net 2011 Slides

The slides below are from last years keynote for GigaOm green:net 2011 Saul Griffith is the Chief Scientist at Other Lab. He has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous...
Symposium on Computation for Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism (Videos & Slides)

Symposium on Computation for Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism (Videos & Slides)

“The aim of the first symposium on computation for sustainable architecture and urbanism is to discuss information-based approaches that augment design processes and decisions towards sustainable buildings and cities. To increase the impact it is important to develop methods and strategies that go beyond mere imagery, to identify fields where...
Generative Thermal Optimisation

Generative Thermal Optimisation

This is a presentation explaining the basic process of generative design and thermal optimisation for filtering using Grasshopper, Genoform and Autodesk Vasari. Would be great if this kind of generative functionality would be built into Vasari itself.
High Performance Building: Performance by Design

High Performance Building: Performance by Design

Great film by Amory Lovins’ team at the Rocky Mouintain Institute: “High Performance by Integrative Design follows the first installment in the High Performance Building Series to provide an in-depth look at how the integrative design process happens. The film includes examples of how design teams collaborate in new ways...
Parametric Painting in Revit

Parametric Painting in Revit

Just came across this cool preview for a Revit Technology Conference RTC2011 presentation by Tim Waldock on “Designing in Revit Using Parametric Formulas” – This example is using adaptive components and the “Reactor Pattern” principle to examine facade design.
Matt Ridley: When Ideas have Sex - The Collective Brain

Matt Ridley: When Ideas have Sex – The Collective Brain

At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It’s not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
Energy Literacy

Energy Literacy

A very informative presentation that helps to get a grip on the energy metrics: “If we are to make a big change in the way energy is produced and consumed we need an “Energy Literacy” that gives people a tangible sense of their energy consumption, and of what it takes...
Latest entries

Best Practice Schematic Massing in Vasari

IBPSA-USA NYC Presents: EnergyPlus GUI, COMFEN and N++

Presentation 1 Title: EnergyPlus for Early Design and Single Zone Studies; David Fannon AIA, Senior Associate, Senior High Performance Specialist, Syska Hennessy Group, Inc. Description: This talk focuses on using COMFEN to run simplified EnergyPlus models which inform early design-decisions and perform simple single-zone studies quickly and relatively inexpensively. Using examples from recent projects, we...
New List of Tools for Building Optimization on Pinterest

New List of Tools for Building Optimization on Pinterest

This is a new and interesting compilation of tools and methods to optimize buildings according to energy, daylight and thermal comfort. Even this blog made it on to the list. Thank you Max .. Follow this link or click on the image below to get there: http://pinterest.com/bengtdahlgren/building-optimization/

New Web Resource for Weather Data for Energy Calculations

White Box Technologies announced the launch of WBT Weather Data for Energy Calculations, a web site providing instant Web access to typical year and historical year weather files for thousands of locations around the world created from recorded weather data going back as far as 30 years to as recent as the past week.  This...

Using Revit Building Element Thermal Properties

Mesh Geometry into Revit without Triangulated Edges via 3ds Max

This looks really helpful especially for creating entourage ..

Trelligence Affinity 8 Released

Trelligence Affinity 8 is now available for use. This new release focuses on enhancements to the Affinity for Revit plug-in, as well as general performance and graphics improvements in the Affinity Desktop. Read more on the Trelligence site: http://trelligence.com/Affinity8.php  

EnergyPlus Version 8.0 and OpenStudio Legacy Plug-in 1.0.10 Available

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released an updated version of EnergyPlus simulation software for modeling heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating, and other building energy flows. Additionally, a new version of OpenStudio Legacy Plug-in for Trimble SketchUp is available, which makes it possible to perform EnergyPlus simulations using Sketchup’s user-friendly 3-D drawing interface. Visit www.energyplus.gov...

VE 2012 Feature Pack 2 Hotfix 1 Now Available for Download

A new hotfix for VE 2012 Feature Pack 2 is now available from the IES Download Centre.

Symposium on Sustainable Urban Design – Case Studies and Design Workflows

This seems to be a great event with speakerst like Matthias Adele Santos (MIT), Rudolf (Transsolar), Christoph Reinhart (MIT), Matt Noblett (Benisch Architekten). Unfortuantely I won’t be able to go: Symposium on Sustainable Urban Design – Case Studies and Design Workflows Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 6 2013 Attendance is free if you RSVP by...

Modeling Topography for Analysis in the Vasari Wind Tunnel Tool

New Report Examines Risks of 4 Degree Hotter World by End of Century

The world is barreling down a path to heat up by 4 degrees at the end of the century if the global community fails to act on climate change, triggering a cascade of cataclysmic changes that include extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks and a sea-level rise affecting hundreds of millions of people, according to...