Abstract
Governments, Industry, and Designers, in response to codes or voluntary "green building" programs, are increasingly concerned with building energy demand reduction, but they are not fully aware of the energy saving potential of architectural design. Building form, construction and material selections are powerful drivers of energy efficiency – but a very few studies have quantified their actual effect in different climate, and none of the study is based on today's computational possibilities and Building Information Modelling processes. This research was inspired by, and attempts to verify, the ideas from two of the most influential books on sustainable design: "Design With Climate" by Olgyay (1963), which discussed strategies for climate-adapted architecture, and Lechner´s "Heating, Cooling and Lighting" (1991), on how to reduce building energy needs by as much as 60 – 80 percent with proper architectural design decisions. Results from these two previous works confirmed the potential of building energy simulations made with limited computational resources available at the time. In this research, genetic algorithms based approach running on cloud computing and supercomputers for the optimization of heating, cooling and lighting energy demands of different building designs are used. In total, over 25 million different buildings has been tested, and the most energy efficient design solutions were explored for 8 different climate zones. The building designs are varied by shape, orientation, window to wall ratio, component and construction types, materials, and different occupant behaviour. This project has been developed by Green Prefab Italia srl and co-financed by European Commission under Grant Agreement no 610874.

Biography Furio Barzon is founder and CEO of Green Prefab since 2012. Green Prefab is a process framework where architects and builders access innovative tools to control costs and performance of a green building. He also taught at the Universita IUAV di Venezia in Venice, Italy for a master programme course called "Interactive Media for Interior Design", multi-disciplinary approach that allow professionals to operate in the fields of computer graphics, interactive media, and post-production. Furio research and expertise focuses on performance based green buildings and life-cycle management for industrial processes in the building industry, using an expertise in digital tools. He has been producing a number of community event, websites, softwares, and companies dealing with innovation in architecture. Furio is also very active in volunteerism and becomes the President of Architecture for Humanity Venezia since 2012, a non-profit design services with a network of more than 50,000 professionals. In 2013, he received 2013 Design Award – Pragmatic Optimist from Architecture for Humanity in recognition of his effort "To Help Transform Lives and Create a Better World for All Through the Power of Design".

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• All are welcome, RSVP by 12 August 2016.