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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) offers building reference prototypes for energy use modeling in commercial and residential buildings. However, these reference prototypes have traditionally been treated in isolation, neglecting the impact of neighboring objects on local microclimate. In urban energy models, where the intricate interaction of urban elements significantly shapes environmental conditions, it becomes more important to reconsider the conventional treatment of building reference prototypes. In this paper we aim to discern potential disparities in energy consumption estimations using DOE prototypes at an urban scale. The Urban Modeling Interface (UMI) was chosen as the simulation platform to incorporate the shadow effect from neighboring objects on building energy use across six scenarios with different shadow coverage by neighboring objects. We found that trees as neighboring structures can decrease cooling load by up to 29%. These results highlight the importance of considering the urban context in energy use estimation of buildings.
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Assessing a community-engaged decision framework for increased urban neighborhood resilience in a warming climate
Successful urban systems-related climate-action-support tools enable urban stakeholders to communicate and collaborate across and beyond their respective disciplines to identify innovative, transformative solutions to increase urban infrastructure resilience and sustainability. The actions of humans within buildings and the relationship of buildings to their near-building environments (aka microclimate) constitute one understudied urban system with significant impact on urban energy use strongly impacted by a warming urban climate. This interdisciplinary research team lead by an architect at a large research university collaborates with local community partners to identify evidence-based approaches for the integration of human behavior data, building energy use characteristics, future climate scenarios, and near-building microclimate data. The team has built a prototypical model, which integrates urban trees into urban energy models based on a large-scale inventory and probabilistic occupancy data based on a neighborhood wide energy use survey. To ensure that these urban energy models are equitable, however, the needs of marginalized populations must be included- especially those most vulnerable to the consequences of a changing climate. The paper reports on two intertwined research strands. First of all, the team’s best practices for gathering data from individuals facing marginalization as well as the application of this residential occupancy data into neighborhood energy models. The second strand addresses trees in urban landscapes and their capacity to modify temperatures in the near-building environment, which is important for reducing summer heat loads on building surfaces. Preliminary results for an urban neighborhood strategies are reported.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1855902
- PAR ID:
- 10517636
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Architecture
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the American Institute of Architecture Conference on Communities
- Volume:
- 2021
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 200-204
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Proceeding:
- https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AIA.Inter.21.29
