GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner for ArchiCAD
"Green” Becomes an Organic Part of the Architectural Design Workflow
GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner is an integrated, easy-to-use building energy evaluation tool for ArchiCAD. EcoDesigner sets new standards in sustainable design by enabling architects to measure and control the energy consumption/production of your buildings and make energy-conscious decisions early on in the design phase.
"80% of the decisions about sustainability are made in the conceptual design phase…" -National Geographic
- Early Design Phase: Sustainability is all about choices, and 80 percent of design choices on energy efficiency are made early in the design process. EcoDesigner is built to help architects optimize the design to achieve the best possible energy performance. EcoDesigner brings sustainability to the core of Virtual Building / Building Information Modeling.
- Informed Decisions: Quick, comprehensive, and easy to use: compare energy consumption, monthly energy balances and other indicators to advise the design process and make the best design choices.
- "One-Click" Evaluation: Building energy evaluation for architects within their native design environment: GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner adds yet another “BIM” dimension to ArchiCAD models. The best news: with just one mouse click, the architect can run energy evaluation for the design at any time in the process.
Workflow
- Model Analysis
- Automated structure markup: defining structure groups for the basis of calculations
- Color display in 2D & 3D: visualizing the results of the structure markup
- Manual Adjustments
- Fine-tune the automated structure markup
- Model Review Palette: user-friendly way to alter the markup results
- Calculation Data Input
- Location & Function: shading, geography data, etc.
- Structure & Openings: U-values, thermal bridges, etc.
- MEP Systems & Energy: ventilation, solar panels, etc.
- Calulation
- Dynamic energy analysis
- VIPCore Calculation Engine
- Results are generated in XML format
- Results
- Summarized Energy Consumption results
- Carbon Footprint calculation
- Monthly Energy Balance diagrams
Analysis
EcoDesigner allows you to generate a report to issue to the building owner. This report allows for a fast, easy to read summary of key energy characteristics in exportable PDF format.
The following is a sample report generated from EcoDesigner:
Learn more at CAD Garage
Recommended User
We recommend EcoDesigner to any architect or designer interested in:
- Winning more business by showing your ecological thinking to clients
- Overshadowing the competition by offering better prepared and better supported design proposals to potential clients
- Meeting the needs of clients who want to optimize building operational costs by saving avoidable energy consumption
- Becoming aware of the “carbon footprint” consequences of your design decisions
- Being better prepared to communicate mechanical engineers about energy consumption related matters
System Requirements & Compatibility
- EcoDesigner is an add-on that runs with ArchiCAD 13
- EcoDesigner will be compatible with ArchiCAD 13 build number higher than 2523. A hotfix will be downloadable using the Check for updates command in the ArchiCAD help menu.
