Programs help
DesignBuilder is a user-friendly modelling environment where you can work (and play) with virtual building models. It provides a range of environmental performance data such as: energy consumption, carbon emissions, comfort conditions, daylight illuminance, maximum summertime temperatures and HVAC component sizes.
Some typical uses of DesignBuilder are:
- Calculating the impact of various design options on building energy consumption.
- Evaluating façade options for overheating and visual appearance.
- Thermal simulation of naturally ventilated buildings.
- Reporting savings in electric lighting due to use of natural daylight.
- Prediction of natural daylight distribution through Radiance and Daysim simulations.
- Visualisation of site layouts and solar shading.
- Calculating heating and cooling equipment sizes.
- Detailed simulation and design of HVAC and natural ventilation systems including the impact of supply air distribution on temperature and velocity distribution within a room using CFD
- ASHRAE 90.1 and LEED energy models.
- Economic analysis based on construction costs, utility costs and life cycle costs (LCC)
- UK, Ireland and France Building regulations and certification reports
- Design optimisation with multiple objectives, constraints and design variables.
- Life-cycle analysis (LCA)
- Communication aid at design meetings.
- An educational tool for teaching building simulation to architectural and engineering students.
Hardware Requirements
- DesignBuilder is a professional graphics application and requires a reasonably high standard of computer hardware for successful use:
- Graphics adapter – a good 100% OpenGL compatible graphics adapter is required to run DesignBuilder. The mid-range and better NVIDIA cards are the most reliable. Some graphics adapters integrated with the motherboard we have tested are unable to run DesignBuilder.
- Memory – DesignBuilder will use all the memory you can provide – at least 4GB is recommended and 8-16GB for serious modelling and simulations.
- CPU speed – get as fast as you can afford. i7 or Xeon are ideal.
- Cores – having multiple processors does not necessarily speed up simulations in DesignBuilder but it does allow you to continue using your computer while simulations are running. Quad (or more) core processors also make the software more responsive in use. If you plan to run optimisations and would prefer to avoid online services then a 16-32 (or more) core server will allow multiple simulations to be run in parallel and allow optimisations to complete much more quickly than on a standard quad core desktop or laptop.
Recommended
- Windows 10
- i5, i7 or Xeon processor with 4 or more cores.
- 8-16 GB (or more) RAM.
- At least 200 GB free disk space. SSD speed up software operation and are more robust especially for laptops.
- Pointing device such as a mouse or laptop trackpad. Most users prefer using a mouse to trackpads.
- 100% NVIDIA graphics adapter with hardware acceleration running in 32-bit color mode.
