The development of a solar house design tool

Building designers need design tools that enable them to rapidly explore the energy performance implication of early design decisions.  The tools should enable them to use their experience, along with performance feedback, to find near-optimal solutions, according to their criteria.  This paper presents a methodology for a solar house design, followed by a description of how it will be implemented in a design tool.    The design tool will use three methods to aid the designer, including: a reduction of the number of parameters, decomposition of certain subsystems, and instantaneous performance feedback.  The focus of the paper is on some of the fundamental design issues.  Two innovative means for feedback are presented.  The final part of the paper explains the computational feasibility of providing the feedback in real-time.