THE FORMULATION OF A BUILDING THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION MODEL

Building design is a decision making process where decisions are made on the selection of certain design variables in order to achieve certain objectives (i.e. economy, thermal comfort, visual comfort, aesthetics, etc.). Information on the relationships between the variables and the desired objectives are necessary for proper decision making. Architects have traditionally reached their design decisions based on past experience. However, total reliance upon individual experience may lead to incomplete and inaccurate results. Therefore, given today's complexities in building design as well as advances in computer technology, systematic approaches can be used as an aid to, not a replacement for, building designers in the decision making process. The aim of this paper is to describe the formulation of an optimization model for the thermal design of building envelopes. This requires defining building design variables, a criterion of optimality, constraints, and a suitable thermal simulation model that can be integrated into the proper optimization technique