The building approached as an integration of energy systems

The dynamic thermal interaction between a building and its environmental control systems is both still difficult to predict, and becomes more critical in practice. Therefore knowledge and evaluation tools for this area become increasingly important. It is argued why knowledge and tools need to be based on an integral approach of the overall problem domain. A research project aimed at development / enhancement of such building perfonnance evaluation tools is outlined. Application of this integral simulation system is demonstrated by means of several case studies. Finally a number of future development areas are indicated