ATLANTA, Georgia, United States, 21 September 2022: Building better buildings while pursing low-carbon strategies was the focus of the 2022 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild, from September 14 to 16 in Chicago, in the US state of Illinois.

Making the announcement through a Press release, ASHRAE said the event, co-organised by ASHRAE and IBPSA-USA, included keynotes, paper sessions, seminars, vendor demonstrations, panel discussions and debates from more than 100 presenters. According to ASHRAE, the conference drew 265 building industry professionals, in addition to a strong virtual audience.

“The transition to low-carbon building solutions is presenting our industry with a significant opportunity to share practical outcomes of modeling and simulation strategies that come out of the Building Performance Analysis Conference on a wider scale,” said 2022-23 ASHRAE Treasurer Dennis Knight. “We all benefited from the collective expertise of this year’s conference presenters, and the focus on ‘better buildings, less carbon’ is at the core of how to proactively tackle the challenges of achieving sustainability and establish climate-friendly, integrated building systems to serves all people.”

According to ASHRAE, keynote sessions featured presentations from Luke Leung, P.E. and Amber Mahone on whole life carbon and integrated energy systems.

The top in-person sessions were:

• Seminar 2: Modelling Existing Buildings
• Panel 2: Fishbowl Session
• Paper Session 9: Lifecycle Carbon Assessment

The top livestreamed sessions were:

• Seminar 16: Advances in Modelling Tools, Approaches and Workflows III
• Seminar 10: Approaches to Modelling Future Weather, Climate and Extreme Events II
• Paper Session 9: Lifecycle Carbon Assessment

According to ASHRAE, for the first time, three interactive programmes were offered to encourage attendee participation. Participants discussed modelling-related issues, such as carbon, renewables, weather data and risk assessment/uncertainty, ASHRAE said.

ASHRAE said the LowDown Showdown modelling team competition took place in conjunction with the conference. The competition is designed to engage architects, engineers, designers and energy modellers by working on integrated teams in the creation of outstanding designs that solve in real-world building efficiency challenges.

According to ASHRAE, this year’s competition asked teams to design a K-5 school in Albuquerque, in the US state of New Mexico, to serve 450 students in an educational setting that provides appropriate spaces for elementary education as well as community uses – and can be adapted to future challenges and changes.

The first place was awarded to team “Zero Heroes”, ASHRAE said, adding that the team’s complete project overview can be viewed on the 2022 ASHRAE LowDown Showdown Modelling Challenge webpage.

According to ASHRAE, the 2023 Building Performance Analysis Conference will take place in Fall 2023.