Green building studio

CADalyst, April, 2004 by H. Edward Goldberg

Green Building Studio

GeoPraxis

www.geopraxis.com

Green Building Studio from Geopraxis is a free Web service that gives 3D CAD users estimates of a building's energy costs during the early conceptual design stages. GeoPraxis, an architectural, engineering, and construction software company, develops and implements building energy analysis tools and Web-based solutions.

Behind the scenes, Green Building Studio relies on a proprietary data management architecture and a voluminous but tightly integrated system of relational databases that contain hourly weather data, design data, and regionally relevant libraries of default building characteristics with common energy code baselines, such as ASHRAE 90.1 1999 and Title 24.

Green Building Studio works with Graphisoft's ArchiCAD and Autodesk's Architectural Desktop, Revit, and Building Systems. The company is currently developing a plug-in for Bentley's MicroStation. After you download a plug-in, Green Building Studio calculates the energy use of a building.

If you change windows, orientation, and materials, you can update the energy analysis. Green Building Studio is currently programmed for the California market, but GeoPraxis plans to regionalize the calculations for codes in other states.

H. Edward Goldberg, AIA, is a practicing licensed architect, industrial designer, and AEC industry analyst. Ed's new, full-length book, Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004: A Comprehensive Tutorial (Prentice Hall, 2003), is available now (www.prenhall.com). Reach Ed at ed.gold berg@cadalyst.com. Or visit his Web site, www.hegra.org. Watch for his new AEC Web portal online in late spring 2004.