The Development of a Building Energy Performance Evaluation Program

Energy performance in buildings has become one of the most broadly debated subjects in contemporary architecture; and current legislation has emphasized its importance by requiring buildings to possess an energy performance certificate. Due to the technological advances in computational tools, it is possible to analyze the energy performance of buildings before construction starts; however most energy performance evaluation tools, requiring complex solid models and high technical knowledge in the field, can be used only during the post design phases. Since any design decision has an important effect on the energy performance of a building, evaluation tools should be used from the very beginning of the design process. In this dissertation, a building energy performance evaluation program, entitled the Energy performance Advisor (EnAd), was developed for evaluating the energy performance of buildings considering not only the legal framework of Turkey, but also the building design process. The program does not need advanced expertise, and was developed to be usable in any phase of the design process.