Can Both the Economic Value and Energy Performance of Small- and Mid-Sized Buildings Be Satisfied? Development of a Design Expert System in the Context of Korea

To design a High-Performance Building (HPB), a performance goal should be clearly set from very early design phases, and then a decision path of what performance measures have been chosen in the past stages and shall be chosen in a later stage should be visible. In particular, for small- and mid-sized HPBs that are constructed with a smaller budget, if applicable performance measures are subjective to change, supplementary design costs can increase due to intermittent performance evaluations. To help this situation, we are developing a design expert system for small- and mid-sized buildings that pursues a balance between economic value and energy performance. The economy rule base suggests the most economic building volumetry and form in view of the site context, while the energy rule base suggests a series of energy-sensitive design variables and their options. Based on these rule bases, the expert system presents multiple design decision paths. The design decision support model of the inference engine helps stakeholders choose a preferred design path out of multiple paths, compare the paths, trace back the paths, and effectively revoke past decisions. An actual small retail and office construction project was chosen as a test case to compare the utility and robustness of the pilot system against the conventional design practice. In case of a rather risky design change scenario, the decision-making using the pilot expert system outperforms the conventional practice in terms of selecting designs with a good balance between economic value and energy performance. In addition, it was easier for users of the pilot system to forecast risks upon critical design changes and, in turn, to identify reasonable alternatives.