Usage patterns of scripting interfaces for building performance assessment at early design stage

The paper documents an ongoing study in the use of Building Performance Simulation (BPS) as a source of feedback in the early stages of architectural design. Taking advantage of the specific affordances provided by parametric scripting for design, fine-grained data about design evolution is gathered from a group of ar-chitecture students. Through the use of computational tools for data analysis, the aim is to gain understand-ing into patterns of scripting in conjunction with BPS. By visualizing design activity for particular users, it is possible to recognize patterns of interaction between iterative cycles of parametric modification and sim-ulation. It is expected that the method described in this paper will in the future allow to achieve a detailed understanding of how users learn from and respond to simulation results in a parametric design process. The paper describes the approach, presents a sequence of data visualizations, and discusses the outcomes ex-pected from the research.