Greening up

As the Green Build conference is starting this week, I thought it would be good to talk a little bit about Autodesk’s tools that can help you make your designs sustainable. 

Last week, I was able to take some sustainability training on how Autodesk products can help with make projects Green.  I was most interested in how Revit fits into the mix and took away some interesting information. 

Green Building Studio is a whole building energy analysis tool that allows you to run design alternatives to see how using different building angles on your site, types of glass, or if using low flow toilets will have an effect on the energy that your building uses.  It is a powerful tool that can be used early in the design process so that you can make decisions that have a positive impact of your buildings sustainability.  You can export your building model from Revit right into Green Building Studio and create these alternatives (without changing your Revit model) with a free plug in once you create a account.  Green Building is a web service so there is no software that is needed (minus the Revit plug in).  

Ecotect is a recent acquisition of Autodesk’s.  Ecotect is very cool.  I think that puts it best.  According to the Ecotect website though:

“ECOTECT is a complete building design and environmental analysis tool that covers the full range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. It finally allows designers to work easily in 3D and apply all the tools necessary for an energy efficient and sustainable future.”

The most interesting thing about these tools is how early in the design process they can be used.  When I was working for Architects, we tended only to think about the energy a building was using near the end of the process.  We didn’t look at energy usage early in conceptual design.  These tools allow you to look at the impact of your design at the earliest stages where simple changes can have the most impact.

You can study the impact of the buildings orientation on the solar gain of your facade quickly.  You can see just what you would need to do to make your building have a zero carbon foot print.  You can perform an acoustical analysis of that large conference room and see how someone at the end of the table would be able to hear the presentation.  It’s not just about sustainability but about understanding the impact of the decisions you are making. 

I really recommend that you take a look at these tools.  They can help you to make a decision that makes your building a little more Green.