Use of a knowledge model for integrated performance evaluation for housing (re)design towards environmental sustainability: A case study

This paper focuses on the development of a knowledge model in the context of energy efficiency and indoor comfort interventions, their impacts on each other and on architectural design preferences, for instance architectural expression or any spatial functionality aspect, via an existing house case study. In addition, it discusses how this type of model can be used in the framework of a decision support tool and be applied to the design and redesign of dwellings. The model is considered to provide an integral knowledge base for the design professional both to evaluate existing designs and to use it as a support during design and decision making in order to reach a most suitable solution, with optimal performance in terms of indoor comfort, energy efficiency, architectural and overall design performance. In other words, its aim is to enable the assessment of the performance of the end result with respect to design choices, beforehand. In this paper, design performance is modeled by means of fuzzy logic operations embedded in a neural tree structure. This method is able to deal with subjective and vague requirements such as low energy consumption, low overheating risk, high comfort, etc. The method of intelligent information processing is explained and a partial application is presented.