Applications of Chaotic/Complex Approaches to Sustainable Buildings

This paper presents a vision for using chaos and complexity approaches in simulation models of sustainable buildings. It notes that sustainable building systems are becoming increasingly complex. As a result, building performance simulation is becoming more crucial and is heading toward new challenges, dimensions, concepts and theories beyond the traditional ones. Based on a critical examination of the literature, this paper selects some representative simulation models that highlight the importance of the current research of sustainable buildings, conducts in-depth analysis of the representative models, and identifies a lack of literature and a need for a suitable approach for handling ever-increasing complexity of simulation models. Chaotic and complex model is proposed to extend the simulation models. The proposed extension is detailed with an illustrative example. This paper provides an update on the current simulation models for sustainable buildings.