Computer-based outline planning in urban development context considering energy and indoor climate aspects

Urban planning and decision making processes in urban scale demand broad range of knowledge and information. For instance, structure and cost could be set of main role playing discussions. However, issues like future energy consumption, microclimate of the region, indoor climate of the zones in smaller scale as well as energy supply of the whole district should be considered. So far, those aspects usually remained neglected or insufficiently considered in the early urban planning stages.

In the frame of this research project, the "CDP // Collaborative Design Platform", a computer-based urban design platform, which has already been developed at the Chair of Architectural Informatics at the Technische Universität München, will be extended with further components to evaluate the energy and indoor comfort quality of the buildings as well as the energy supply options for the area. This will be carried out through an interdisciplinary cooperation between the Chair of Architectural Informatics and the Chair of Building Technology and Climate Responsive Design. The overriding objective is the optimization of urban development projects at an early stage with regard to urbanism, energy and indoor climate.

The research project combines for the first time the evaluation of the outdoor climate, the indoor climate and the energy efficiency at urban planning level, seamless integrated in a creative, computer-based, interdisciplinary planning process.