Trends: Buildings, Technologies and Tools
The buildings industry faces many challenges and opportunities over the next few decades. Over the next ten years, changes in building technology—particularly wireless controls and solid-state lighting—will profoundly alter how our buildings are designed, built, and operated. Building energy simulation (SIM) has evolved into a powerful tool for evaluating the energy performance of potential or existing buildings. Building simulation allows easy comparison of the energy and environmental performance of many hundreds of design or retrofit options. The buildings touted today as ‘net-zero energy’ or ‘sustainable' would not be possible without energy simulation—but no single simulation tool can model all aspects of our buildings today. This presentation provides an overview of trends and drivers affecting the building industry as well as the simulation tools of tomorrow.
Speaker Bio:
Dru Crawley is Bentley Fellow and Director, Building Performance Research focusing on building performance, zero-energy Buildings, decarbonization, digital twins, smart cities, sustainability, and resilience. Prior to being elevated to Bentley Fellow in 2014, he led the development of Bentley’s building performance software suite for four years. Before joining Bentley in 2010, Dr. Crawley developed and managed EnergyPlus and the USDOE’s Commercial Buildings Initiative (now Better Buildings Initiative and Alliances), promoting the creation of net-zero-energy buildings.
With more than 40 years of experience in buildings energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainability, he has worked in engineering software development, government research and standards development organizations, as well as building design and consulting companies. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, on the topic of building simulation as a policy tool, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee, and is a registered architect.
