Visual Req Calculation Tool for Green Building Evaluation in Taiwan

Abstract

ABSTRACT：The concept of a "green building" was first introduced to Taiwan in 1999, and began to develop regulations for the design and evaluation of energy-saving buildings. The Ratio of Equivalent Transparency (Req) is a basic index for assessing whether a building is energy-efficient. Req is the ratio of the area of total building envelope and the area of envelope equivalent transparency. Calculation of Req requires not simply the consideration of natural factors such as building location, direction, ambient lighting and sunshine, but also and physical factors such as material, structure, ventilation and sunshade. Furthermore, Req is considered particularly applicable due to the ubiquity of terraced houses in Taiwan, given the country's high population density. In this study, the correction factor to include the effect of party walls is added into the formula of Req calculation to prevent distortions to the area calculation of the building envelope. Current practices in Taiwan of manually calculating Req render the results prone to error, and are also time-consuming. To address these issues, this research developed a visual Req calculation tool based on a 3D environment. This system provides users with various visualization tools to view the status and Req results of the building project. Furthermore, object-oriented modeling and parametric design can shorten the time taken to look-up tables and simplify the process of Req calculation, and also help to reduce computation time and errors.

Enhancing environmental sustainability over building life cycles through green BIM: A review

“…Krygiel and Nies [64] summarised the different ways that BIM can aid in planning and design for building sustainability. The benefits they identified included the following: i) assessing the building's orientation (for selecting a good orientation that can reduce energy costs); ii) analysing the building's massing (for analysing building's form and optimising the building's envelope in terms of various factors such as the ratio of equivalent transparency (Req) (see [29]); iii) conducting daylighting analysis; iv) investigating the water harvesting potential (for reducing water requirements in a building); v) modelling building energy performance (for reducing energy needs or analysing renewable energy options that can contribute to low energy costs (see [58]); vi) examining the suitability of sustainable materials (for reducing material needs and using recycled materials) and vii) designing site and logistics management (for minimising wastes and carbon footprints). Clevenger and Khan [125] evaluated the contribution of BIM to the design-to-fabrication process for building materials.…”

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Green BIM Assessment Applying for Energy Consumption and Comfort in the Traditional Public Market: A Case Study

“…Wong and Zhou [17] reviewed the previous green BIM research over building lifecycles and defined green BIM as "a model based process of generating and managing coordinated and consistent building data during its project lifecycle that enhance building energy efficiency performance, and facilitate the accomplishment of established sustainability goals". Lu et al [5] concluded that the majority of green BIM applications were designed for building performance analysis and simulations, such as energy performance analysis [18][19][20][21][22][23][24], embodied carbon dioxide emission analysis, lighting simulations and some integrated building performance optimization [25][26][27][28].…”