The MIT Design Advisor is a multi-purpose simulation tool designed to evaluate the performance of advanced building facade systems. By defining a set of building parameters and operating conditions, a building designer can simulate in realtime the energy requirements (heating, cooling, and lighting) and comfort levels (daylight, temperature) of a proposed design. This simulation presents the user with a convenient method of examining facade performance.

Existing analysis tools are typically very complicated, difficult to learn, and require a fully developed building design, making them unsuitable for preliminary design analysis. Efforts to improve building efficiency are typically left for the later stage of the design process, after the critical design decisions have already been made. Because early stage design decisions can have a dramatic impact on building performance, we offer this tool as a fast, simple way for a non-technical user to evaluate preliminary designs.

Building codes help to ensure that buildings meet a minimum standard of energy efficiency. To assist building designers, we are implementing a tool to test a proposed building design against two building code standards: ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2001, and the UK Building Code Part L.

The Design Advisor allows a user to simulate a single side of a building facade or an entire four-sided building. The four-sided simulation assumes that the features on each side of the building are identical. In practice, this is often not the case, and so we are developing added functionality to simulate a building with four different sides.