Climate adaptive building shells for office buildings in Egypt: a parametric and algorithmic daylight tool

摘要

There is an emerging need to include sustainability–related performance features within the conceptual design stages of a building, especially for parameters such as daylighting and energy usage. Advances in digital architectural design now mean there are innovative possibilities for designing and evaluating dynamic façades capable of generating predetermined environmental performance criteria within a space. It is possible to update the traditional concept of the building envelope from acting not as a passive barrier but as an active negotiator with the surrounding environment. A framework is introduced in which the interdisciplinary integration and performance optimization of climate adaptive building shells (CABS), inspired by traditional Egyptian patterns, were synthesized to evaluate a wide range of façade design alternatives. A multi-objective optimization model for shape exploration is presented to assist designers in creating performance-driven forms at the early design stages. Daylighting was the key performance criterion used to design a CABS system using parametric design and optimization tools for an office space in Cairo, Egypt. The results demonstrated that the CABS system could achieve the desired daylight criteria using its own predefined capabilities.