Sensitivity of façade performance on early-stage design variables

• Published in: Energy and buildings Vol. 77; pp. 457 - 466
• Main Authors: Jin, Q., Overend, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier B.V 01-07-2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Buildings; Buildings. Public works; Commercial building; Commercial buildings; Exact sciences and technology; External envelopes; Façade design; Project management. Process of design; Sensitivity analysis; Types of buildings; Wall. Partition; Whole-life value; Whole-life value; Sensitivity analysis; Commercial buildings; Performance; Façade design; Office building; Performance evaluation; Script; Life cycle (environment); Front wall; Commercial facility; Modeling; Indicator; Design; Comfort; Value analysis
• ISSN: 0378-7788
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.03.038

•We aim to identify the principal design parameters that affect facade performance.•We perform sensitivity analysis in standard regression analysis and Sobol's method.•2 types of office building types, 4 orientation and 3 climates are evaluated.•The impacts of each design variable on façade performance indicators are quantified.•Results are presented in useful façade design sensitivity charts.
Early-stage façade design is a complex and multi-objective process. There are two principal barriers in the process of identifying an optimal façade solution. Firstly, the number of design variables and their uncertainty are relatively large, making design decisions difficult. Secondly, each design variable is likely to affect several performance indicators simultaneously, which makes it difficult to quantify the impacts of the design variables. In this paper, we perform sensitivity analyses on two generic building scenarios (a cellular office room and an open-plan office floor) in three geographic locations (London, Helsinki, and Rome). A series of façade sensitivity coefficient charts for early-stage façade design are produced for these locations thereby providing quantitative relationships between a comprehensive list of design variables and façade performance indicators. The sensitivity coefficient charts provide a guide for allocating the limited design time and construction budget to the design variables that will generate the largest impact on facade performance.