Global practice Aedas is the only architectural firm to be awarded under the TSB’s Metadata Call for the Creative Industries. In recent years Aedas has instigated a number of cross-disciplinary research projects to visualise and interpret data emerging during the design, construction and operation of buildings. The lessons learned informed the design and delivery of projects such as the Al Bahr Towers for the Abu Dhabi Investment Countil which has led to the practice’s adoption of Building Performance Evaluations and the Soft Landings Scheme.
CarbonBuzz, the RIBA CIBSE online carbon management platform, led by Aedas R&D since 2006, is aiming to close the gap between the forecast and actual energy use of buildings. Existing CarbonBuzz consortium partners Aedas, Aecom, BRE and CIBSE will match the TSB grant to develop a plugin to the CarbonBuzz platform to better predict energy consumption.
Buildings are responsible for over 40% of UK CO2 emissions but research shows that low carbon expectations rarely materialise in practice. Using data gathered from design stage modelling as well as operational data, the plugin will allow CarbonBuzz users to estimate at design stage the risk of higher than expected operational energy use from factors relating to design, occupancy and building management.
With building owners and operators facing increasingly higher energy bills and having to post certificates displaying their actual energy use this tool will be able to reduce their exposure as well as designers’ risk.
_About CarbonBuzz:
CarbonBuzz is a free online platform funded jointly by the Technology Strategy Board and industry allowing users to track the CO2 emissions of projects from design to operation online and share lessons learned anonymously. CarbonBuzz is the only platform currently collating such data and making it accessible for research. Existing CarbonBuzz project partners include RIBA, CIBSE, Aedas, Aecom, Davis Langdon, BRE, UCL, XCO2Energy, Fielden Clegg Bradley and Autodesk.
_About the Technology Strategy Board:
The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led executive non-departmental public body, established by the government. Its role is to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. It is sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). For more information please visit www.innovateuk.org.