In today’s world, climate change stands as one of our most pressing challenges, with the built environment responsible for nearly 40% of global carbon emissions. So, how can we, as professionals in the AEC industry, underscore our role in mitigating this impact?
Democratizing Access to Building Performance Technology
Buildings are more than just a collection of materials; their creation, operation, and eventual dismantling are pivotal moments where choices can either exacerbate our carbon footprint or lead us toward a more sustainable future.
With a mission to democratize access to building performance and analytics technology, Chaos has introduced Enscape Impact—an add-on to the popular real-time rendering plugin, designed to transform how architects evaluate the sustainability of their designs early in the process.
Developed in partnership with global tech company IES, this tool integrates IES’s energy modeling capabilities with Enscape's real-time rendering plugin. The add-on provides enhanced information on energy efficiency, simulated energy use, and carbon emissions indicators to guide early design decisions.
Bridging the Gap Between Real-Time Rendering and Energy Modeling
Enscape Impact provides a fast and intuitive way to assess a design's environmental impact. Architects can now empirically evaluate their buildings' efficiency with minimal interruptions to their design flow. What was once a separate phase, often detached from real-time design iterations, is now seamlessly woven into the architectural process.
Tightly integrated with all supported Enscape host applications—Revit, SketchUp, Vectorworks, Archicad, and Rhino—Enscape Impact is designed to complement the Enscape core product. The beta version is currently available for Windows only, but a version for macOS is being worked on.
Enscape Impact serves the AEC community at large. BIM professionals and engineers benefit from more efficient and effective collaboration with architects and designers, allowing them to work together earlier in the design process and shape solutions that are both aesthetically pleasing and fully aligned with the project's sustainability goals.
Real-Time Insights for Sustainable Design
Enscape Impact's insights are powered by the APACHE engine, developed by IES. Over the past 30 years, IES has established itself as the leading global innovator in integrated performance-based building analysis and is now home to the world's most prominent building physics analytics team.
Widely regarded as the best whole-building energy simulation engine, the powerful APACHE engine performs dynamic thermal simulations to provide detailed insights into a building's performance.
The Enscape Impact interface is designed to offer architects and designers clear, visual representations of the energy use within their designs—from peak loads and total carbon emissions to more complex data sets. Architects can use this intuitive representation to communicate the sustainability status of their designs to clients and stakeholders.
Help Develop Enscape Impact
Enscape Impact offers an innovative approach to visualizing building performance, bridging the gap between energy modeling and design creativity. It puts the power of sustainable design in the hands of architects.
Between August and October 2024, Chaos offers you the chance to test the beta version as part of Enscape 4.1. While the Enscape Impact beta is available at no additional cost, a fee will be associated with its commercial launch.
To share your experience, add your log files via the Feedback options available in Enscape. This is the unique opportunity to test and evaluate Enscape Impact and learn how to incorporate energy analysis into your design workflow.