Daylight, Thermal, and CFD Simulation
Evidence-based studies in daylight, thermal comfort, energy, and airflow, aligned with international standards and built to inform design.
What I do
End-to-end simulation work: setup, validation, parametric exploration, and the reporting that lands the result with the design team and the client.
- Daylight and glare: Radiance, Honeybee, and Cyclops (GPU). Annual daylight metrics (sDA, ASE, UDI), EN 17037 compliance, glare studies, and ML surrogates for early-stage iteration.
- Thermal comfort and energy: EnergyPlus, OpenStudio, TAS, TRNSYS. TM59, Part O, and BCO peak solar load. Operative temperature, PMV/PPD, adaptive comfort.
- Outdoor comfort: UTCI, MRT, sun-hour mapping. Ladybug Tools, TRNlizard, custom workflows for City of London thermal compliance.
- CFD: ANSYS CFX/Fluent, OpenFOAM, Eddy3D. Pedestrian wind safety (Lawson, City of London), natural ventilation, urban canyon studies.
How I engage
- Single-question simulation: one focused study with a clear deliverable.
- Iterative design support: embedded simulation through the design phases, scaling complexity as the model develops.
- Validation and second opinion: independent re-run of a third-party simulation against the project context.
Methods
Workflows are usually parametric from day one, driven by Grasshopper, Ladybug Tools, and Python, so the team can ask “what if?” without rebuilding the model. Where the simulation engine is slow (Radiance raytracing, IES VE overheating), I deploy ML surrogates and GPU acceleration to keep up with the design conversation.
Deliverables
Reports, drawings, and visualisations calibrated to the audience. Compliance positioning, parametric variant comparisons, interactive web dashboards for client engagement, and the underlying model handed back to the team if requested.
Example contexts
- Wind comfort and thermal comfort for City of London developments.
- Outdoor comfort coupling: CFD + thermal at Bordeauxplatz, Munich.
- UTCI mapping for a 128,000 m² comfort plaza in NEOM, Saudi Arabia.