Executive Summary : | In the recent years there has been increasing demand for energy-efficient buildings and various building energy simulation tools have been developed. Green building standards such as LEED (USGBC, 2009) and GRIHA have been issued and implemented in many countries including India. As per the records of India 2020- Energy Policy review, the residential sector is the second biggest energy consumer at 29% of TFC in 2017. The applications for building simulations include building heating and cooling load calculation, daylighting calculation and reflective roof analysis, building energy management and control system design, building regulations, code checking, cost analysis, and so forth (Hong et al.,2000). Although many simulation tools exist today, the optimization process, which involves iterative simulations, is inefficient and time consuming. The purpose of optimisation is to generate large number of feasible solution in design and chose the best fitting ones for the specific design objectives. Usually the number of solutions an architect can create and evaluate within a reasonable timeframe is limited. However, integration of building performance simulations into design optimization is a complex and time consuming process. The main objective of this research is to develop a multi-objective optimization model, with a special focus on the improving the thermal performance of building envelope and fenestrations for naturally ventilated residential buildings in two different climatic regions, namely warm-humid and moderate. The research is proposed to explore various multi-objective optimisation methods applied so far in building performance design and try to develop an improved optimisation program or model which would be less time consuming and more efficient. Very few researches have been done so far, in optimisation of fenestrations for natural ventilation in buildings. Hence, it is also proposed to optimise the sizes, positioning of windows/openings for natural ventilation. The optimization engine will be based on two design objectives, building envelope design for thermal performance and fenestration design for natural ventilation. The outcome of this research will facilitate fast and extensive creation and evaluation of design alternatives through a process of searching, simulating, and optimizing in order to meet specified architectural design objectives. |