SimulEICon :A Multi-objective Decision-support Tool for Sustainable Construction

Sustainable construction is critical to the construction industry. However, many sustainable construction practices were only focused on environmental issues without considering the multi-objective nature of construction projects. During the design and planning stage of a construction project, there are many alternatives for individual building components,causing tremendous difficulty for construction professionals to choose the right components that lead to an overall optimal design at the building level. In addition, multiple project objectives such as cost and environmental impacts will compound the complexity of such a decision-making process. Today, there isn't a tool that can assist design and construction professionals to select such optimal solutions to satisfy multiple project objectives. SimulEICon is designed to allow professionals to select multiple design options for each component of a building and determine optimal overall design solutions at building level. In addition, an optimization procedure is integrated with a building information modeling tool to support such analysis. Currently, SimulEICon is built using Revit Architecture and Microsoft Access, together with genetic algorithms, NSGA-II, for optimization. Cost and environmental impact data associated with design alternatives are derived from data sources such as RSMeans for cost and environment impact tools such as Athena Impact Estimator for environmental impacts. This paper discusses the design and development of SimulEICon and the application of the tool by using a case study.