Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 3297–3302

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Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

Review

Optimised design of energy efficient building façades via Evolutionary Neural

Networks
Giovanni Zemella a,∗ , Davide De March b,c , Matteo Borrotti d,e , Irene Poli d
a
Ove Arup & Partners, 13 Fitzroy Street, W1T4BQ London, UK
b
EvoSolutions S.r.l., via della Libertà 9, 30175 Venice, Italy
c
Department of Statistics, University of Florence, viale Morgagni 59, 50134 Florence, Italy
d
European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT), University of Venice, San Marco 2940, 30124 Venice, Italy
e
Department of Statistical Science, University of Bologna, via delle Belle Arti 41, 40126 Bologna, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Buildings are required to be more and more energy efficient, in order to comply with restrictive require-
Received 19 April 2011 ments of building regulations and energy certifications. Optimisation algorithms have shown to be
Received in revised form 5 August 2011 effective in identifying good solutions for the design of efficient building services. In this article Evo-
Accepted 4 October 2011
lutionary Neural Network Design (ENN-Design) has been adopted to drive the design of a typical façade
module for an office building. This application is significant, since façades play a major role in the def-
Keywords:
inition of the energy performance of buildings. Both single-objective and multi-objective optimisations
Energy optimisation
have been carried out. The aim of the article is to introduce an innovative approach for improving the
Multi-objective optimisation
Neural networks
performance of building envelopes by means of a reasonable amount of calculation time.
CO2 emission reduction © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Energy efficient buildings

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3297
2. Optimised design of energy efficient building façades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3298
2.1. Single-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3298
2.2. Multi-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3298
3. Problem description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3299
4. Evolutionary Neural Network Design optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3299
4.1. Single-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3299
4.2. Multi-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3300
5. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3300
5.1. Single-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3300
5.2. Multi-objective optimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301
6. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3301

1. Introduction
for a considerable percentage of the overall energy consumption
It has been shown that a new global economic strategy is and, consequently, carbon emissions [2]. Regulations are becom-
necessary in order to limit the effects of climate change: the ing more and more restrictive in limiting the energy requirements
business-as-usual path will lead to unbearable risks for climate and of buildings and energy certifications are linking the commercial
society [1]. A field that is strongly involved in this necessary change value of buildings with their level of sustainability.
of perspective is the building industry, as buildings are responsible This forces engineers and architects to adopt new tools, since
the traditional ways of designing buildings are no more effective
in meeting the sustainability requirements and, at the same time,
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 2077555042; fax: +44 2075803924. providing adequate levels of comfort for the occupants. The main
E-mail address: giovanni.zemella@arup.com (G. Zemella). issue is due to the difficulty in considering the overall behaviour

0378-7788/$ – see front matter © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V.

doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2011.10.006
3298 G. Zemella et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 3297–3302
of the building interacting with different climates and different
seasons [3,4].
Façades influence the energy performance of buildings since
they are responsible for heat losses and solar gains and allow for
daylighting. Therefore the energy requirements for heating, cool-
ing and artificial lighting are strongly driven by the performance of
the façade. Designing a façade for an energy efficient building is a
very challenging task, because it is necessary to consider how the
different aspects (heating, cooling and lighting) interact in the over-
all energy requirements of the building [5]. The main challenge is
to find the best balance between contradictory requirements, such
as allowing for high levels of natural lighting without solar gains
being too high during summer. At the same time, during winter an
adequate amount of solar gains can be beneficial for the reduction
of heating loads. An efficient design should not focus on one single
aspect (e.g. minimising the cooling energy requirements) without
considering the interactions with the other sources of energy con-
sumption. On the contrary, it is extremely important to take into
account all the elements at the same time. This cannot be done
properly by means of the traditional procedures, which are mainly
based on experience and specific design conditions. A new, holistic
approach is necessary.
Evolutionary optimisation approaches have been proven effec-
tive in driving the design of energy efficient building services
because of their capability in handling extremely large numbers
of variables and potential solutions [3,6,7]. However, evolution-
ary algorithms have not yet been widely applied for the design of
the façades of energy efficient buildings, even if they represent an
important tool in developing these optimisations [2].
The study of evolutionary algorithms has shown the great help
of statistical models in driving the evolution of the best solution
in large and complex search spaces [8,9]: Artificial Neural Net-
works (ANN) have been adopted to predict the whole solution
space, calculated by means of time-consuming simulations. In this
approach the optimisation algorithm can evolve towards the opti-
mal solutions by using the Response Surface Approximation (RSA)
developed by the ANN.
This paper introduces a novel approach for the design of façades
of energy efficient buildings and describes the development of an
evolutionary approach based on statistical models with the form of
predictive neural networks. This approach has been very successful
in other fields in reaching the optimal solutions while using very
limited computational resources [10].
The aim of this paper is to apply the optimisation procedures for
the design of a typical curtain wall façade. The evolutionary model
based design has been developed according to two approaches,
which will be shown and compared:
- a single-objective optimisation, which consists in designing a
building façade leading to the minimisation of the operational
carbon emissions;
- a multi-objective optimisation, which identifies the trade-off
curve in optimising energy consumption for cooling and artificial
lighting.
The approaches have been carried out by coupling the sim-
ulation tool EnergyPlus to a specifically developed optimisation
algorithm: the Evolutionary Neural Network Design (ENN-Design).
2. Optimised design of energy efficient building façades
Optimisation procedures can be effectively adopted in order to
identify optimal – or very good – solutions for single and multi-
objective problems. It is possible to choose between two strategies
for the optimisation process [6,11]: a priori or a posteriori. The a
priori strategy assigns different weights to various criteria leading
to the identification of a single-objective function to be opti-
mised. The a posteriori optimisation addresses the multi-objective
problem by providing a set of optimal solutions representing the
trade-off between the different considered criteria.
2.1. Single-objective optimisation
In this study the target is to identify the façade configuration
leading to the minimum amount of carbon emissions required in
order to guarantee the target level of comfort for the occupants of
the building. The objective function which has been minimised is
the annual amount of carbon dioxide emitted per floor area due to
the energy consumption for heating, cooling and artificial lighting,
and has been evaluated by means of the following equation [5]:
fgas
 QC
  kg 
CO2
ECO2 = QH + fel QL + (1)
H COP m2
where
- QH , QL and QC [kWh/m2 ] are the annual energy consumptions due
to heating, artificial lighting and cooling respectively, calculated
by means of EnergyPlus simulations;
- fgas and fel [kgCO2 /kWh] are carbon intensity factors for gas and
electricity respectively; these parameters relate the amount of
carbon emissions to the energy consumption of gas (for heating)
and electricity (for cooling and artificial electricity). These values
have been assumed to be [5]: fgas = 0.194 kgCO2 /kWh and fel =
0.422 kgCO2 /kWh;
- H [–] is the overall efficiency of the heating system, which has
been assumed to be 0.89 [5];
- COP [–] is the coefficient of performance of the cooling system:
for London an average value of 3.4 has been assumed [5];
- For the lighting system, a luminous efficacy of 75 lm/W has been
assumed [12].
The optimisation of the single-objective function depends on the
weights that are assigned, a priori, to the different criteria, like the
constant COP of the cooling system or the carbon intensity factors.
2.2. Multi-objective optimisation
The multi-objective algorithm aims to optimise each criterion
separately, so there is no need to assume any weights. In this paper
the Pareto approach has been adopted [13]; it consists in deriving a
curve (the Pareto front) made up of all the non-dominated solutions
of the search space, where a solution X1 is said to be non-dominated
by the solution X2 if both the following conditions are satisfied [13]:
1. the solution X1 is no worse than X2 in all objectives;
2. the solution X1 is strictly better than X2 in at least one objective.
Potentially, it is possible to consider several objectives simulta-
neously; in this paper two objectives are considered since for an
office building there are two main sources of energy consumption:
the cooling system and the artificial lighting. The most difficult
challenge for a design team is often, in fact, a proper compro-
mise between these two contradictory criteria. Therefore the Pareto
front for this case will be the trade-off curve between the annual
energy consumption for cooling and for lighting (i.e. the parameters
QC and QL previously presented).
 G. Zemella et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 3297–3302
Table 1
Solar performance of the considered glass types.
Glass type Variable g-Value
Planibel TopN Type 0 0.58
Iplus Sun Type 1 0.43
CoolLite SKN 165B Type 2 0.34
Ipasol 50/25 Type 3 0.28
Ipasol 40/21 Type 4 0.22
3. Problem description
This study considers an office building located in London and,
more specifically, a typical façade module for the west elevation,
made out of a visual area inserted between two opaque panels;
in order to limit the solar gains, the presence of external shading
devices (i.e. a horizontal overhang and vertical fins) has been con-
sidered. The façade module has been assumed to be 3 m wide and
3.8 m high; the depth of the module has been chosen in accordance
with the prescriptions of [14], which identifies the first 4.5 m as the
perimeter area of the building, which is influenced by the façade
performance.
The following variables have been considered for the optimisa-
tion process:
- visual area: the percentage varying between 20% and 80% of the
façade surface in 43 steps;
- horizontal overhang: the depth varying between 0.1 m and 1.0 m
in steps of 0.1 m;
- vertical fins: the depth varying between 0.1 m and 1.0 m in steps
of 0.1 m;
- vertical fins: the inclination varying between 10◦ and 90◦ in steps
of 10◦ ;
- the glass installed: five different coatings available in the mar-
ket have been considered to be applied to the double glazed unit.
While the thermal transmittance of the glazed panel is constant
(i.e. 1.1 W/m2 K for an argon filled cavity), the solar performance
varies in terms of total solar energy transmittance (g-value) and
visual light transmittance (LT). The performance of the consid-
ered glass types are summarised in Table 1. Please note that the
table reports the performance for double glazed units, where the
high performance coating is applied on the inner surface of the
external glass pane. For the inner pane a clear laminated glass has
been considered. The values have been calculated in accordance
with the European Standard EN 410.
In order to find the best combination of the variable levels,
193,500 potential solutions should be evaluated: all the possible
solutions have been tested in order to have a clear indication about
the actual performance of the optimisation process.
The thermal model has been built with the software tool Energy-
Plus calculating the annual energy consumption for heating, cooling
and artificial lighting. The thermal model refers to an office build-
ing space and the following assumptions have been considered, in
accordance with [15]:
- Internal environment conditions: the internal air temperature is
22 ◦ C and 24 ◦ C for winter and summer respectively; during the
hours when the space is not occupied, the temperature can drop
in winter down to 12 ◦ C and in summer it can go up to 28 ◦ C.
The design value that has been set for the illuminance is 500 lux
[16]: the illuminance level is evaluated at a reference point in
the centre of the room and at a height of 0.8 m (i.e. the typical
desk level). This is to simulate the presence of a sensor connected
to the building management systems: considering the amount
of daylighting reaching the sensor, the power provided by the
3299
artificial lights is adjusted in order to reach the target level for
illuminance. It should be noted that internal blinds may be nec-
LT essary in order to avoid glare issues, and this may have an impact
76% on the actual levels of daylighting. Since the focus of the paper
69% is on the optimisation methodology rather than on the detailed
58% energy simulation, the presence of the internal blinds has not
48% been considered.
40%
- Façade thermal transmittance: the opaque spandrel elements
have been assigned a centre pane U-value of 0.35 W/m2 K, and
for the double glazed unit a centre pane U-value of 1.1 W/m2 K
has been assumed. Therefore, the overall thermal transmittance
of the façade varies between 0.9 W/m2 K and 1.3 W/m2 K for a
vision area of 20% and 80% respectively, taking into account the
thermal bridges due to the framing system.
- Internal gains: the assumptions for the internal gains have been
based on the indications reported in [15]; for people doing office
activity, the internal gains are considered as 10 W/m2 as sensible
gains and 8 W/m2 as latent gains. For the electrical equipment
sensible heat gains of 15 W/m2 are considered. The maximum
amount of heat gains for artificial lighting is 12 W/m2 : this value is
then modulated considering the amount of available daylighting.
4. Evolutionary Neural Network Design optimisation
The optimisation of complex combinatorial systems may be
very difficult to be addressed under standard optimisation tech-
niques. An evolutionary technique is based on the Darwinian
theory [17], which evolves populations of candidate solutions using
genetic operators such as selection, recombination and mutation.
Genetic Algorithms [18], Evolutionary Algorithms [19] and other
approaches implement these mechanisms, inspired by the biolog-
ical evolution. Accordingly to this approach, a first population of
solutions is randomly chosen in the experimental space and eval-
uated by means of a cost function or fitness function. The first
population of solutions is then evolved accordingly to evolutionary
genetic operators, through a sequence of generations.
In general, recombination and mutation ensure diversity and
variability inside the population (exploration of the space), while
selection boosts the quality of the response (exploitation of the best
solution).
For the study addressed in this paper, a new evolutionary pro-
cedure has been created, the Evolutionary Neural Network Design.
This procedure is based on Artificial Neural Networks models [20]
and the evolutionary approach. ENN-Design has been used both in
single-objective and in multi-objective optimisation showing good
performance in discovering optimum solutions in a fast and reliable
way.
4.1. Single-objective optimisation
The ENN-Design is based on a non-linear statistical model and
the search strategy evolves according to the information collected
throughout the different steps of the evolutionary procedure.
A three-layered neural network topology has been adopted,
where a sigmoidal activation function maps the input layer to the
hidden layer and a linear activation function maps the hidden layer
to the output layer [20].
The Darwinian paradigm, in this case, has been adopted to
evolve the structure of the neural network by mutating the struc-
tural parameters, generation by generation.
Initially, a very small population is randomly selected: 50 combi-
nations of variables are detected from 193,500 potential solutions.
The response is then calculated by means of EnergyPlus analysis
according to Eq. (1). For this population it is possible to build a set
of neural network models with different elements (neurons) in the
3300 G. Zemella et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 3297–3302

hidden layers. The connection weights of the networks are then

learnt on a training formed by the 80% of the total population.
The assessment of the network performance is based on a back-
propagation algorithm up to convergence or until a stop criterion
is satisfied [21].
The best neural network model in prediction is the one minimis-
ing the root predictive error (RPE) on the test set:

m∗   2
t=1
Yt − Yt
RPE = (2)
m∗

where m* represents a test set of the initial population 20%, Yt is

the tth response of the system and Yt is the tth predicted response
by the neural network model. For this particular application, Y is
Fig. 1. Geometry of the thermal model.
the objective function ECO2 (Eq. (1)).
This best network is then used to predict the entire search space
and to select a new set of 50 variable combinations, identified as the
configuration leading to the minimum amount of annual carbon
ones with the optimal fitness function value, i.e. the façade config-
emissions due to operational energy consumption for heating, cool-
urations leading to the lowest amount of CO2 emissions and which
ing and artificial lighting. It is important that the algorithm gets
have not been previously tested. These new candidate solutions are
as close as possible to the real optimum solution; it is equally
then calculated by EnergyPlus and added to what was already eval-
important for it to identify a set of solutions whose energy perfor-
uated, forming a more informative set of solutions. On this larger
mance is satisfactory. The evolutionary approach, developed along
set of solutions a new network is fitted, accordingly to the proce-
30 generations, led to the results described in Fig. 2, where the
dure described above. The new statistical model will then predict
best and average façade design achieved with the algorithm are
the whole space of solutions in a more precise way.
compared in terms of annual CO2 emissions. The performance of
This procedure follows a path in the search space identifying
the ENN-Design algorithm has been evaluated by computing the
regions where the best solutions are more likely to be found. This
entire response surface considering all the possible variable con-
approach is iterated for n generations or until a stop criterion is sat-
figurations involved in this problem.
isfied. In this study 30 generations are considered and this involves
Fig. 2 shows that the best variable combination in designing the
1500 runs of EnergyPlus, i.e. less than 1% of the total search space.
module façade approaches the optimal solution in a fast way. Also
the average value shows the good performance of the algorithm,
4.2. Multi-objective optimisation evolving the entire population of solutions close to the optimal
value after the fifth generation. This indicates that a large popu-
The ENN-Design has been adopted to drive the optimisation of lation of good solutions has been identified.
more than one response of the system at a time. In evaluating the performance of the algorithm the distribution
In particular a set of different neural networks is built and of the whole system response has been derived and the number
the best one in prediction is detected. In the multi-objective of the best responses belonging to the 1% quantile of the distribu-
optimisation the best network in prediction is the one having tion has been computed. Related to this distribution the number
simultaneously the lowest RPE for each output of the system. of the best ENN-Design solutions falling in this extreme region of
⎧ 
⎪ m∗  the distribution has been counted: Fig. 3 shows that at the thirtieth
⎪
⎪

Y1t − Y1t
2
⎪
⎪ ∗
RPE1 =
t=1 generation there are 87 solutions belonging to the 1% best solution
⎪
⎪ m∗ set of the entire space. The best of this solution in each generation
⎨
.. is reported in Fig. 2. Identifying the best solution set is particularly
RPE ∗ = RPE1∗ , . . . , RPEw
∗
= (3)
⎪
⎪  . relevant in the building design field since it gives the designer the
⎪
⎪ m∗ 
⎪
⎪

Ywt − Ywt
2
⎪
⎩ RPEw∗ = t=1
∗m

In this case it is Y1 = QC and Y2 = QL (refer to Eq. (1)). The best

network is then used to predict all the responses of the possible
combinations of variables and a Pareto front is derived on these
predicted values. The following generation is then made out of 50
solutions, which belong to the estimated Pareto front and have not
been previously tested.
The procedure is iterated for a small number of generations (30),
in order to identify the set of non-dominated experimental points
of the problem.

5. Results

5.1. Single-objective optimisation

For the problem addressed in this paper, the single-objective

procedure has been applied, as outlined in Section 4.1, to opti-
mise the façade module of an office building as shown in Fig. 1.
The single-objective optimisation aims to identify the façade Fig. 2. Single objective: evaluation of the performance of the algorithm.
 G. Zemella et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 3297–3302
Fig. 3. Increase of the number of solutions within the optimality regions.
opportunity to select a façade configuration among a set of options
which all belong to the optimality regions.
5.2. Multi-objective optimisation
The aim of the multi-objective optimisation presented in this
paper is to identify the façade configurations whose performance
lie in the trade-off curve between the annual energy requirements
for cooling and artificial lighting. The optimisation procedure is to
provide the designer with a database of solutions, which are part
of the Pareto front between the considered criteria. The algorithm
may be considered to have worked properly if it finds many solu-
tions, which are part of the actual Pareto front. It is important that
all the areas of the trade-off curve are identified, otherwise precious
information would be lost [13].
In order to evaluate the performance of the developed pro-
cedure, the Pareto front of the entire space of the variables
combinations has been computed. Fig. 4 compares the Pareto front
of the whole space and the trade-off curve identified by the optimi-
sation procedure: it is possible to see that the two curves are almost
overlapping and this highlights the extremely good performance of
the algorithm.
The set of solutions forming the Pareto front can be used in
many ways by the decision-maker of the project. For example, it is
Fig. 4. Multi objective: evaluation of the performance of the algorithm.
3301
Fig. 5. Impact of different glazing types on the façade performance.
possible to know the impact of the selection of the glazing type on
the overall performance of the building.
Fig. 5 shows the best solutions available for each of the consid-
ered glazing types: high g-values and visual light transmittances
lead to façades on the lower right corner of the Pareto front, i.e. the
zone where high cooling loads are associated to low energy con-
sumption for artificial lighting. The other way round occurs for the
darker glass types, having low g-value and light transmittance. The
relevance of the presented results is that the designer of the build-
ing can take decisions having information of what the best solution
for each type of glass is. This is just an example of the opportunities
that become available to the designers with this procedure.
6. Conclusions
This paper shows how ENN-Design represents a very effective
procedure for the design of façades of energy efficient buildings.
The performance of the developed algorithms has been tested for
both a single-objective and a multi-objective optimisation process
and in both cases the results have been satisfactory.
The main feature of the optimisation process is that it enables
to adopt a holistic approach, which takes into account, at the same
time, all the different aspects influencing the performance of a
façade. And it can be done within a computational time that can
be handled on a reasonable design time-scale: this could not be
done should a batch simulation be run instead. The benefits in com-
putational time obviously vary with the level of complexity of the
analysis that is run. In this way the design decisions can be based
on a very complete set of information and it is possible to achieve
very ambitious targets in terms of energy efficiency of buildings
without compromising the comfort of the occupants.
This paper has shown just one possible application of optimi-
sation for the design of façades. Many other possibilities can be
explored and other criteria can be taken into account, such as the
different parameters measuring the comfort levels, or the running
and initial costs of the different options, as well as a comparison
between embodied and operational carbon emissions.
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