Using Artificial Intelligence to Design Energy-Efficient Buildings

The National Science Foundation issued a statement on May 10, 2018 in which the agency envisions that "The effects of AI will be profound. To stay competitive, all companies will, to some extent, have to become AI companies. We are striving to create AI that works for them, and for all Americans." This is probably the strongest message and the clearest matching order from a top science agency in the world about a particular area of research thus far. The application of AI to the field of design, and more broadly, creativity, is considered by many as the moonshot of the ongoing AI revolution, which is why I have chosen to dedicate a considerable portion of my time and effort to this strategically important area.

I have added two more application categories of using genetic algorithms (GAs) to assist engineering design in Energy3D, the main platform based on which I am striving to create a "designerly brain." One example is to find the optimal position to add a new building with glass curtain walls to an open space in an existing urban block so that the new building would use the least amount of energy. The other example is to find the optimal sizes of the windows on different sides of a building so that the building would use the least amount of energy. To give you a quick idea about how GAs work in these cases, I recorded the following two screencast videos from Energy3D. To speed up the search processes visualized in the videos, I chose the daily energy use as the objective function and only optimized for the winter condition. The solutions optimized for the annual energy use are shown later in this article.

Figure 1: A location of the building recommended by GA if it is in Boston.

Figure 2: A location of the building recommended by GA if it is in Phoenix.

For the first example, the energy use of a building in an urban block depends on how much solar energy it receives. In the winter, solar energy is good for the building as it warms up the building and saves the heating energy. In the summer, excessive heating caused by solar energy must be removed through air conditioning, increasing the energy use. The exact amount of energy use per year depends on a lot of other factors such as the fenestration of the building, its insulation, and its size. In this demo, we only focus on searching a good location for a building with everything else fixed. I chose a population with 32 individuals and let GA run for only five generations. Figures 1 and 2 show the final solutions for Boston (a heating-dominant area) and Phoenix (a cooling-dominant area), respectively. Not surprisingly, the GA results suggest that the new building be placed in a location that has more solar access for the Boston case and in location that has less solar access for the Phoenix case.

Figure 3: Window sizes of a building recommended by GA for Chicago.

Figure 4: Window sizes of a building recommended by GA for Phoenix.

For the second example, the energy use of a building depends on how much solar energy it receives through the windows and how much thermal energy transfers through the windows (since windows typically have less thermal resistance than walls). In the winter, while a larger window allows more solar energy to shine into the building and warm it up during the day, it also allows more thermal energy to escape through the larger area, especially at night. In the summer, both solar radiation and heat transfer through a larger window will contribute to the increase of the energy needed to cool the building. And this complicated relationship changes when the solution is designed for a different climate. Figures 3 and 4 show the final solutions for Chicago and Phoenix as suggested by the GA results, respectively. Note that not all GA results are acceptable solutions, but they can play advisory roles during a design process, especially for novice designers who do not have anyone to consult with.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence such as GA provides automated procedures that can help designers find optimal solutions more efficiently and thereby free them up from tedious, repetitive tasks if an exhaustive search of the solution space is necessary. Energy3D provides an accessible platform that integrates design, visualization, and simulation seamlessly to demonstrate these potential and capabilities. Our next step is to figure out how to translate this power into instructional intelligence that can help students and designers develop their abilities of creative thinking.