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Project Dasher

Project Dasher is an Autodesk research project using a BIM-based platform to provide building owners with greater insight into real-time building performance throughout the life-cycle of the building.

Groups

Complex Systems Research

Overview

Project Dasher is an Autodesk research project using a BIM-based platform to provide building owners with greater insight into real-time building performance throughout the life-cycle of the building.

A sustainable building is not a fixed ideal, but a moving target that must be reassessed on an ongoing basis in order to respond to the ever changing patterns of its occupants and its context. While building performance tools have traditionally focused on the simulation and evaluation of a specific design, we are witnessing a growing need for tools that can help us to continuously evaluate and verify building performance. Today, most buildings are equipped with sophisticated Building Control Systems (BCS) that collect data from thousands of end-points. These systems help building operation managers maintain buildings by minimizing long-term operational cost ensuring occupants’ comfort. However, a key challenge is to define methods of organizing, studying and communicating data, while coping with perpetual changes inherent in any commercial building.

In this context, we need a more integrative approach to maintain the complex balance between our energy-saving measures and occupant comfort. Using BIM as in ideal platform for managing complex building information, Project Dasher aims to go beyond existing building dashboards to represent a comprehensive framework for monitoring building performance. Project Dasher acts as a visualization hub where collected data from various sources is intuitively aggregated and presented in 3D to enhance our ability to infer more complex causal relationship pertaining to building performance and overall operational requirements.


Overview Video

Interview

Pilot Projects

CanmetENERGY

CanmetENERGY in Varennes, located near Montreal, leads programs in Buildings and Communities, Renewables, Industrial Processes and manages the world-leading RETScreen International Clean Energy Decision Support Centre. In support of R&D activities this building contains 6 analytical laboratories and 2 pilot plants with test benches to study and recreate industrial prototypes and buildings. It is also equipped with a wide range of analytical and experimental tools, such as climatic and psychrometric chambers, which allow device testing in controlled environment, using state-of-the-art instrumentation. One of the most important development activities at CanmetENERGY is demonstrating technologies under actual conditions. Facilities include an integrated demonstration project on intelligent buildings and photovoltaic technologies.





NASA Sustainability Base

Using NASA innovations originally engineered for space travel and exploration, the 50,000 square-foot, lunar-shaped Sustainability Base is simultaneously a working office space, a showcase for NASA technology and an evolving exemplar for the future of buildings. Sustainability Base is one of the greenest Federal buildings ever constructed. It is designed to go beyond ‘not hurting’ the environment to actually being beneficial to nature and humans. Through a combination of innovative design and leading-edge technology, Sustainability Base generates all the power it needs to operate and uses 90 percent less potable water than a traditional building of comparable size.





Autodesk Toronto

Situated in downtown Toronto, 210 King Street East is the current home of Autodesk's Toronto office. This eclectic workspace spans four historic Toronto warehouses, built between the 1930s and 1960s, with a total 145,000 square feet of office space. In 2009, growing out of an interest to foster awareness towards energy consumption and to promote more sustainable practices for existing buildings, the 210 King building was chosen as a living laboratory for Project Dasher.





For more information, please contact Kean Walmsley

Publications
9 publications
Dive In! Enabling Progressive Loading for Real-Time Navigation of Data Visualizations

Michael Glueck, Azam Khan, Daniel Wigdor (2014)

Dive In! Enabling Progressive Loading for Real-Time Navigation of Data Visualizations
CHI 2014 Conference proceedings:
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
pp. 561-570
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Details
Big Data and the Built Environment

Azam Khan, Kasper Hornbaek (2011)

Big Data and the Built Environment
LARGE 2011 Conference proceedings:
Research in the Large: Using App Stores, Wide Distribution Channels & Big Data in UbiComp Research
4 pages
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Details
Real-Time Compression of Time Series Building Performance Data

Rhys Goldstein, Michael Glueck, Azam Khan (2011)

Real-Time Compression of Time Series Building Performance Data
BS 2011 Conference proceedings:
International Conference of the International Building Performance Simulation Association
pp. 1057-1064
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Details
Lifecycle Building Card: Toward  Paperless and Visual Lifecycle Management Tools

Azam Khan, Alex Tessier, Holger Graf, Souheil Soubra, Guillaume Picinbono, Ian Keogh (2011)

Lifecycle Building Card: Toward Paperless and Visual Lifecycle Management Tools
SimAUD 2011 Conference proceedings:
Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design
8 pages
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Details
Real-Time Occupancy Detection using Decision Trees with Multiple Sensor Types

Ebenezer Hailemariam, Rhys Goldstein, Ramtin Attar, Azam Khan (2011)

Real-Time Occupancy Detection using Decision Trees with Multiple Sensor Types
SimAUD 2011 Conference proceedings:
Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design
8 pages
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Details
Sensor-enabled Cubicles for Occupant-centric Capture of Building Performance Data

Ramtin Attar, Ebenezer Hailemariam, Simon Breslav, Azam Khan, Gord Kurtenbach (2011)

Sensor-enabled Cubicles for Occupant-centric Capture of Building Performance Data
ASHRAE 2011 Conference proceedings:
ASHRAE Annual Conference
8 pages
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Details
BIM-based Building Performance Monitor

Ramtin Attar, Ebenezer Hailemariam, Michael Glueck, Alex Tessier, James McCrae, Azam Khan (2010)

BIM-based Building Performance Monitor
Presentation
Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design
April 12, 2010
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Details
210 King Street: A Dataset for Integrated Performance Assessment

Ramtin Attar, Michael Glueck, Venk Prabhu, Azam Khan (2010)

210 King Street: A Dataset for Integrated Performance Assessment
SimAUD 2010 Conference proceedings:
Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design
4 pages
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Details
Toward a Unified Representation System of Performance-Related Data

Ebenezer Hailemariam, Michael Glueck, Ramtin Attar, Alex Tessier, James McCrae, Azam Khan (2010)

Toward a Unified Representation System of Performance-Related Data
eSim 2010 Conference proceedings:
IBPSA-Canada eSim Conference
8 pages
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Details
Project Members
  • Ramtin Attar
  • Simon Breslav
  • Josh Cameron
  • Michael Glueck
  • Rhys Goldstein
  • Azam Khan
  • Michael Lee
  • Ryan Schmidt
  • Jos Stam
  • Alexander Tessier
  • Kean Walmsley
Alumni Members
  • Ebenezer Hailemariam
  • Overview
  • Publications
  • Project Members
  • Alumni Members

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