Daylight Prototypes: From Simulation Data to Four-Dimensional Artefact-Physical Metrics Models in Sustainable Design Education

The increasing use of building performance simulation in architectural design enriches digital models and derived prototyping geometries with performance data that makes them analytically powerful artefacts serving sustainable design. In our class “Parametric Design”, students perform concurrent thermal and daylight optimization during the architectural ideation process, employing digital simulation tools, and also utilize rapid prototyping techniques to produce process artefacts and whole-building analysis models with climate-based day-light metrics physically embedded. Simulation metrics are merged with prototyping geometries to be output on a colour-capable Zprinter; the resultant hybrid artefacts simultaneously allow three-dimensional formal as well as whole-year daylight performance evaluation, rendering analysis scope four-dimensional. They embody a specific epistemological type that we compare to other model instances and posit to be an example of multivalent representation, a formal class that aids knowledge accretion in workflows and allows designers to gain a physically reframed understanding of geometry-performance relationships