Early-stage environmental modeling: tools and strategies for climate based design

In the BIM era, a lot of different tools have been adopted at an increasingly fast rate to manage energy modeling for buildings. The very aspect that often remains disregarded is the energy and environmental modeling of what happens outside the buildings, in the empty space among them, including squares, and any other outdoor area. Early-Stage Environmental Modeling –ESEM- should enable early energy and outdoor environmental performance analysis for more-sustainable design by using iterative process, in order to explore several options and identify an optimal approach early on. Decisions taken during the early design phase of urban retrofits and building renovations have a major influence on the final energy demand and environmental performance, especially for outdoor users. Nevertheless, existing environmental assessment procedures are not well systematized in a quantitative way, as they separately consider energy efficiency, outdoor comfort, cost and their complex interactions. The aim of the research is to test some of the most widely used environmental analysis software packages and their related plugins, is to give proven strategies that reduce the complexity of the documentation effort and work-flow, and to demonstrate how the early stage environmental modelling can be delivered, to review their diverse potentialities and to enhance green design strategies.