Application of sensitivity analysis in design of sustainable buildings

Building performance can be expressed by different indicators such as primary energy use, environmental load and/or the indoor environmental quality and a building performance simulation can provide the decision maker with a quantitative measure of the extent to which an integrated design solution satisfies the design objectives and criteria. In the design of sustainable buildings, it is beneficial to identify the most important design parameters in order to more efficiently develop alternative design solutions or reach optimized design solutions. Sensitivity analyses make it possible to identify the most important parameters in relation to building performance and to focus design and optimization of sustainable buildings on these fewer, but most important parameters. The sensitivity analyses will typically be performed at a reasonably early stage of the building design process, where it is still possible to influence the most important design parameters. A methodology of sensitivity analysis is presented and an application example is given for design of an office building in Denmark.