A building’s architecture—its form, mass, envelope design, selection of construction materials, and layout of interior spaces—has a tremendous impact on both its energy efficiency and the comfort and productivity of its occupants. Recognizing the importance of architecture to the international mission of climate change mitigation via energy efficiency, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) launched the 2030 Commitment in 2010. The Commitment adopts the goals of Architecture 2030—50% energy savings over 2003 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) levels by 2005, 60% savings by 2010, 70% by 2015, 80% by 2020, 90% by 2025, and zero net energy (ZNE) by 2030 for all new construction. The Commitment challenges firms to achieve these performance levels and emphasizes the role of building energy modeling in doing so.

Several years ago, DOE and AIA initiated a joint project. Together, they would develop a portal that was to streamline and simplify 2030 Commitment reporting for signatory firms. The portal would also give firms and AIA tools to self-study their portfolios, track their progress over time, and study the work of other firms in anonymized aggregate. The portal would also connect architects to other services like the EPA’s Target Finder and, eventually, DOE’s Building Performance Database and Asset Score. DOE would also get access to the data, again in anonymized aggregate—in the DDX, an organization can only see a project in detail if it owns that project. Otherwise it only sees groups of projects as lists of square footage/EUI pairs—to benchmark and track the use of energy modeling in design. AIA launched the portal—the 2030 Design Data Exchange or DDX—in January 2015, in time for the 2014 reporting cycle.

On October 20, 2015 AIA released the 2030 Commitment Progress Report for 2014. The report highlights the progress made by firms in 2014 and points to the role of the DDX in achieving that progress. In 2014, 140 firms submitted reports for 4,300 whole-building projects totaling 2.4 billion gross square feet. This is up from 99 firms, 2,400 projects, and 1.6 billion gross square feet in 2013. Average pEUI—predicted or design EUI—reduction also increased in 2014, from 34% to 37% while the number of projects meeting 2030 goals increased from 7% to 11%.

“The feedback we are getting on the new 2030 portal is that it is has great value in allowing for better visualization across a firm’s design portfolio, and the ability to compare against projects of similar size and scope. Users also tell us they use the research screens to show their clients how design strategies are connecting with 2030 baseline performance metrics,” says Melissa Wackerle, AIA Director of Sustainable Practice and Knowledge. 

AIA Fellow and SmithGroupJJR Sustainable Design leader Greg Mella adds, “SmithGroupJJR was an early adopter of the 2030 Commitment program. The launch of the DDX was a major step forward for us, providing our designers with a central location to report and track energy targets during our design phases, to promote literacy in energy metrics, and to analyze our progress towards reaching the goals we’ve committed to across our practice.”

The 2014 progress report also shows that more projects are being modeled at the early design stages, although the number still lags both projects that use late-stage modeling—modeling for compliance or LEED rather than for high-performance design—and projects that are not modeled at all, pointing to significant headroom in that area. Growth in architecture firm use of advanced modeling software like EnergyPlus—via interfaces like Sefaira, DesignBuilder, and OpenStudio—and IES<VE> indicates that early stage modeling should continue to grow.

Dr. Amir Roth
Amir Roth is the Technology Manager for BTO’s Building Energy Modeling (BEM) sub-program. He has served in that role since 2010.
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