| Customer |
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA)
U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory |
| Users |
Architects and building contractors |
| Need |
One major factor affecting the protection
of our environment is often ignored -- the buildings and facilities
in which we live and work. Environmental impacts are felt
throughout the life-cycle of a building. For instance, acquisition
of building materials may result in resource depletion or production
of toxic wastes. 10% to 30% of the space in landfills is composed
of building debris, making it second only to paper in many locations.
During a building's use, energy is consumed and occupants may
suffer from exposure to chemically-treated materials.
Until recently, facility designers, builders, and operators
did not have a convenient, well-grounded means of considering
environmental issues during design, construction and building
use. Traditional information sources have been difficult to
use in practice, because they could not produce tailored recommendations
or evaluations for specific projects. |
| Solution |
Stottler Henke developed EnvKB, a flexible
and easy-to-use environmental knowledge base which provides
customized environmental information to assist facility design
and construction. EnvKB’s knowledge base contains more
than 200 environmental design principles (features, considerations,
and techniques) and associated cases that illustrate effective
applications of these principles.
EnvKB prompts the user for information about a project and uses
this information to select relevant design suggestions and considerations,
using case-based retrieval. The user can request architectural
layouts or other information about specific cases that illustrate
each design suggestion or consideration. |
| Status |
EnvKB was used as the basis for developing
the Green Building Advisor software system, distributed by BuildingGreen
Inc. |
Related
Applications |
Capturing and applying expertise as design
principles linked to specific cases can be used for other types
of design problems by manufacturing and service companies to
support consistent and effective design of products and processes. |
Additional
information |
Green Building Advisor web page:
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com
EnvKB is an Army Research Office success story.
|
