Multiobjective optimization of daylighting, energy, and thermal performance for form variables in atrium buildings in China's hot summer and cold winter climate

Building form parameters, including building orientation, exterior shape, and interior space, interactively influence building performance. Nevertheless, few studies have reasonably proposed variables for all these parameters and optimized them simultaneously to establish trade-offs among daylighting, energy, and thermal performance. This study extracts the design variables that have a significant impact on performance, including the orientation, south facade inclination, roof inclination, south/north section aspect ratio of the atrium (SARs/ SARn), east/west section aspect ratio of the atrium (SARe/SARw), and top-to-floor area ratio of the atrium (TFAR). A multiobjective optimization (MOO) framework is proposed for balancing daylighting performance, energy consumption, and thermal comfort, and useful daylight illuminance (UDI), energy use intensity (EUI), and thermal discomfort time percentage (TDP) are used as metrics to assess the interactive relationships between design variables and performance parameters. A building in the hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone is selected as an example, a south-by-west orientation, positive south facade inclination and negative roof inclination, large SARs/SARn and SARe/SARw, and small TFAR yield balanced performance. With reference to the initial solution, improvements in EUI could reach 18.67%. Building forms in the HSCW zone can be optimized based on these results, thus providing a good foundation for sustainability.