This page is available to all students in the SU School of Architecture who wish to access software tutorials, web tools, troubleshooting resources, example files, and other materials that may aid the completion of coursework for Building Systems and other courses.
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Sefaira Design Performance Testing with SketchUp
30-day trial: The Sefaira education team provided this link for education customers to start a Sefaira trial. It is a 30-day trial to Sketchup Studio, which includes Sefaira.
Purchases can be made here:
Student license (optional – it is $55 per year): https://www.creationengine.com/sketchupstudent
Tutorials:
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ATHENA Impact Estimator for Buildings
In North America, the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings is the only free software tool that is designed to evaluate whole buildings and assemblies based on internationally recognized life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Using the Impact Estimator, architects, engineers and others can easily assess and compare the environmental implications of industrial, institutional, commercial and residential designs — both for new buildings and major renovations.
https://calculatelca.com/resources/watch-tutorials/impact-estimator-for-buildings-tutorials/
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Honeybee is in the family of energy and environmental analysis plugins for Grasshopper for Rhino. Honeybee supports detailed daylighting and thermodynamic modeling that tends to be most relevant during mid and later stages of design. Specifically, it creates, runs and visualizes the results of daylight and radiation simulations using Radiance and energy models using EnergyPlus/OpenStudio. It accomplishes this by linking the Grasshopper/Rhino CAD environment to these engines.
https://www.ladybug.tools/honeybee.html
EnergyPlus
EnergyPlus™ is a whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to model both energy consumption—for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and plug and process loads—and water use in buildings.
Energy Fundamentals
Video tutorial series on energy modeling using Grasshopper for Rhino:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtSMbRCHXHVGeqcgxxE7U_GY3eUnc2Lpp
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