Did you know 40% of greenhouse gas emissions are due to the built environment? That is all of the buildings and urban areas that have been modified by man’s desire to develop, right. So that any land that is not a natural landscape, parking lots, roadways, infrastructure, all of those things, the construction process is a huge factor in the emissions of greenhouse gases, up to 40% of what’s in the atmosphere. So what can we do about this? We can use tools such as building energy modeling to design better buildings that can improve the emissions of into the environment and so we can mitigate some of the impact and, and hopefully we can reverse some of this damage moving forward. Using building energy modeling. What, how do we use energy modeling? Well, in the design process we’re working on drawings of new buildings or renovations of existing buildings and using not only two dimensional software, but a three dimensional software. our offices, our office uses Rev. It a which is designed to build a virtual model of your building. And w what benefit this provides us is that we can actually quantify all of the materials that are building that virtual model that will wind up being in your real building after construction is finished. And so Architects in Michigan can use this energy model, this virtual model that is fully representational of a real building and using data collected over the past hundred years on all the building products.

We can test the energy efficiency of the entire building, because we can orient it to the sun, we can place it in context with other buildings and we can run these performance checks on the virtual model. So that long before you spend your hard earned money on the real building, we can tell you how well this building will perform if constructed according to this energy model. So using this energy model, we can also apply for the construction building permit and prove the compliance paths for the energy code in Michigan. And so this is a critical, check that most municipalities across the state of Michigan will be asking architects in Michigan for this, energy model data and showing that the building design is in compliance with at least the minimum of code of the energy code for the state of Michigan.

In the Michigan region, our climate demands a more cooling, dominant, design, right? So even though you think we have cold winters in Michigan, it really is the summertimes that are driving the design of the building. The energy model, is going to be testing for climate dependent design data, especially in Michigan that are, that is driven toward the summer months. So those hot, bright, sunny days, are really going to impact how the building is designed more so than the colder winter days. Now that doesn’t mean that you only designed toward the summer months, but those are a limiting factor to the development of the design. So Architects in Michigan can use this energy model to improve your building’s envelope, which we’ve discussed before in the windows roof, wall assemblies, things like that. So that we can achieve a balanced energy model through the cooling months and as the heating months in the wintertime.

our design models are used in, in the design process to achieve a performance metric so that we know during construction and after construction, this building will perform. However, these energy models can also be used in post occupancy, which means after the building is constructed up to a period of one year at minimum after construction where they’re there in occupants are using the building day in and day out and Architects in Michigan. We’ll take a look at the energy model from the design phase and compare it to the operational phase during that post occupancy period so that we can fine tune any of the products, a mechanical systems, electrical systems. Sometimes there is the need for this fine tuning after the fact. And so that one year period is a good time to dial in that building according to what the energy models, per performance based metrics set out in the first place.

so architects in Michigan can impact your triple bottom line, not only the bottom line, but like I said, the triple bottom line. And that triple bottom lines is a people place and planet. So understanding not only what the building needs are, but understanding how that building impacts the humans that use the building or maybe you’re a canine and feline friends if it was a veterinarian clinic. and also the place. And that means the planet that we are impacting. How this building impacts the energy efficiency and the sustainability, reactions to the planets. own energy compliance

architects in Michigan can impact your bottom line. So not only are we concerned about making sure that your building design meets your budget and can be constructed under, under, under budget and under time always. but we also want to be conscious of the triple bottom line, which is people, place, and planet. So we are concerned about the, the human occupants of the building, the surroundings of the building. So it’s site and its context. And that leads to the environmental impacts. So the planet, we’re very concerned about the broader impact of any new building or renovation of an existing building on its environment around it. So architects in Michigan are use the energy model to develop this for you?

Architects in Michigan use various software tools for energy modeling. The Department of energy offers a free software, but this is mainly used for residential projects and smaller scale projects. but like I said, we use a three-dimensional software called Revit, which has, additional plugins that we, we use to model the building’s energy, loads and, demands. So there’s a need for how much energy the building will consume and as well as how much energy the building can produce. And we use a variety of different software tools, beyond the, you know, the historical prescriptive methods, which were what established how buildings were designed before. but we use advanced tools to make our models and our building designs even better. Sedgewick and Ferweda Architects stand out doing this type of work because our, our software expertise and our energy modeling expertise give us the edge in Michigan to make sure that our buildings are designed not only for today, but for the feature.