Passive house, evolutionary based multi-objective optimization, and an oddball's perspective

Hi I'm Trevor. New to the AEC and Passive House, Aviation Machinists Mate by trade and training. (The following reflects solely the views and opinions of the Author only and does not reflect the views, standings, opinions of the DOD or USN) Currently Active Duty as you may have guessed by the disclaimer as to avoid judicial punishment.

For me the Journey to the AEC, Passive House, Cradle to Cradle; started when I was scooped up off freelance boards doing CAD/CAM/CAE, drafting and odd jobs within the realms of the aforementioned. A few things immediately stood out to me and became an obsession. The data loss chasm between software, computational / parametric design is the most stimulating thing for my brain IF in conjunction with a 'mission', general task or overbearing goal. Otherwise I just get distracted. Passive House and the general concept that the built environment while being the skeleton of civilization and having the ability to influence things from the infrastructure that comprises the organs of civilization and the evolution of our sociology. Is also; be it the impact of the materials themselves or inefficiency of the buildings created requiring an enormous amount of energy compared to 'informed' and 'educated' designs. Is a massive task to be addressed in the efforts to protect the climate and our planet.

To paraphrase a bit from Braungart and McDonough, and the works of Olgyay: Universalist 'solutions' mean that there is going to be a ton of waste, and an over use of force 'Brute force solutions'. Like is spoken of in C2C about the motto of the first industrial revolution "If brute force doesn't work, you are not using enough of it.". If I am not mistaken; with quantum computing on the horizon, we stand at the brink of the 5th industrial revolution. Isn't over engineering, brute force a bit antiquated at this point? How do we find what truly optimized buildings look like? what is the limit? how to we interpolate this with the financial variables? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY VARIABLES!?

For some reason, grasshopper and my brain are friends. I've a few atypicalities neurologically speaking. Visual programming language and being able to see the flow of information, how it influences geometry ect. It's been an empowering experience, I in no way am any kind of master or top tier user. I'ts just been a means to correlate various things and a medium in which to discover, learn and do. Most importantly in the trying times we live in; a bringer of joy.

Lets get technical real quick

Ah yes. The Passive House energy balance equation! OK so what is all this, lets take a look:

We have Qt (Transmission losses eg heating demand) Qv (ventilation losses, also heating demand) Qs (Solar heat gains) Qi (internal heat gains) Now I don't know about anyone else but I was not a good student in highschool, I've no University education at the moment and during the fantastic CPHC/D course put on by Peel Passive House I was having to teach myself calculus in parallel to the course material itself. So lets break it down towards first principals a bit.

What we have here are a bunch of variables that break down into more equations but fundamentally we are looking at the thermal envelope, the HVAC, the glazing in respect to the solar radiation you may or may not want, and the internal heat gains. (You know, like people, computers... cats) Obligatory link to an article on using cats as the mean to heat a Passive House

O?K so, we've basically got walls, floors windows and an air handling and energy recovery system. Their specific properties and performance metrics and how they are interpolated into the PHPP's computation engine for verification and validation. Choice! We've the to-do list, the means and methodology to make Dr. Feist proud. Let's do it.

Now I don't know about you but I still have questions. Lets blame it on the US Military's conditioned idea that there is never 'good enough' and you must make everything better, faster, more efficient and effective to accomplish the mission so we can go home and sleep. We have the means, methods and methodology; but how do we ask 1000 questions that all intertwine in an overwhelming way?

Lets pretend that Qh from the above equation is the constant. all of the other variables are 'number sliders' linked in a way that no matter what (within reason!) when one is moved the others move as to maintain 15kWh/(m2a).

How do we do this..... how do we ask 1000 questions desiring the best solution to the overbearing question of Passive House standards? BUT also try to do it in a way that is the most financially efficient as possible to bring what I believe is a basic human right as it comes to a warm dry healthy place to live and work?

....... Maybe Multi-Objective Evolutionary optimization and computation engines can help. This is the abstract idea that has been gnawing at me for the past year. lets combine bldgtyp's IDF2PH to take the ridiculous amount of information from a horde of combined software like EnergyPlus, THERM, Radiance from Ladybug and her crew and populate the Passive House Planning package and run it through a multi objective optimization and computational engine.

So I made a basic four walls a floor and a roof building. With the 'gene pools' being the R-value of each surface, and the height of the roof's peak (gotta get a little parametric sometimes just for fun). and hit run.

Learned a few things: Evo engines are not lighting fast (with my hardware). It does work. (this is a short video of about 50 minutes worth.. the true first run was much more efficient at hitting or getting lower than 15kWh/(m2a) If you hap haphazardly assign gene pool domains; you may spend some time internally screaming: YOUR GOING THE WRONG WAY at the heating demand field on the verification worksheet of the PHPP.

This was just a rough and nasty end to end test to make sure everything jives. I envision and will be working on integrating every element from generative structural design with the goal of minimizing material and mitigating thermal bridging to the best of ole faithful computer's ability. Generative design of the most efficient and effective MEP system.

I want to see what a building, designed purely via generative, computational, multi-objective evolutionary solvers focused on interpolating ALL variables in respect to Passive House criteria looks like.

Form should follow function.. but it is 2020 and complicated.

If you have made it this far: thank you for coming to my pseudo TED talk. Best wishes, good health.