Research framework for development of building performance simulation tools for early design stages

Recent research on identification of user barriers for the adoption of building performance simulation (BPS) tools indicates that architects wants to use the output from BPS to inform their decisions in the early design stage, but only if the BPS tools are conformed to fit their design practice. In this paper we therefore propose a research framework for the development of BPS tools conformed to fit common design practice in the early design stage. The proposed framework was constructed based on review of existing research methodologies in the area of BPS for informing decisions in the early design stage, and on review of methodologies used in other research fields, such as design research, social science, software development, and innovation research. The proposed research framework consists of four elements: 1) a reflective researcher who navigates the research activities and reflect on research methods, approaches and outcome; 2) a framing of the research to identify relevant theme, topic and research question of interest; 3) an iterative workflow procedure of planning, acting, observing and reflecting to generate a spiral of understanding, inspired by action research; and 4) a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods and approaches from the related research fields that could be applied continuously to seek and refine different solutions. The paper also reports on an application example which demonstrated that the framework is a helpful tool for systematic navigation and documentation of research activities and collection of data. Furthermore, the iterative nature of the framework continuously increases the researchers understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the design practice in early design stage enabling them to make better proposals for BPS tools that are conformed to fit common design practice in the early design stage.