SSOE Group: Improving sustainability outcomes for industrial projects with Autodesk Forma

In this insightful interview, Ana Luisa Verduzco Aguirre and Dulce Nayree Lopez Parra, Architects at SSOE Group, discuss the challenges faced while working on industrial projects.

Through a case study featuring an industrial manufacturing facility in Coahuila, Mexico, they explain how Autodesk Forma helped alleviate some of these challenges and enabled better sustainability outcomes.

Comparing improvements with another building, with the improvement that we made using Autodesk Forma we often have results that we can have energy bill savings around 35% to 45%.

Dulce Nayree Lopez Parra, Architect, SSOE Group

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Transcript:

Ana Luisa Verduzco Aguirr: For industrial projects the three main challenges that we face often is, first of all the construction costs are on the rise. Secondly, we have tight deadlines that we have to keep to, so this gives us almost no time to make all the analysis that we need to have, at the moment. The third point for us is to remain the firm, in profit, and this translates to time, and at the end of the day, I think everyone knows time is money.

So when we have technologies like Forma that can help us to actually reduce those times, to make the architectural designers really focus on what the the project needs, meanwhile having analysis within minutes, that’s really, really helpful.

This project is located in the northern part of Mexico, a state called Coahuila. And the main challenge is that it has extreme temperatures, it’s a desert zone. In the winter it tends to be really cold, and during the summer months it’s really hot.

Dulce Nayree Lopez Parra: So we wanted to avoid the impact of these weather conditions in the buildings. For that, we run the analysis of sun hours, daylight potential, wind and microclimate. This is an analysis that we are running with Autodesk Forma. We obtaining that it’s better to ‘modificate’ the main facade of the office building. For the cafeteria area we extrude some elements in the main facade to add some shading, strategically. And for the offices we added recessed windows to block also the sun impact, but maintaining the daylight potential optimal for the offices.

My improvements, solved using Autodesk Forma, was reducing the sun exposure in the main zone of the windows from four hours to two hours. Also for the main entrances we reduced the temperature by four celsius degrees, blocking the sun with architectural elements. And also these block wind that directly impact on the zones where the pedestrian people will be walking.

Ana Luisa Verduzco Aguirr: At the end of the day, it’s all about the people, that they feel safe, comfortable, and they like the space that they are going to interact with on a daily basis.

Dulce Nayree Lopez Parra: When you have this shading strategy in the main zone of the windows we’re also reducing the AC unit demand. With this, we increase efficiency, we reduce the peak loss.

When you consider that you are improving the HVAC equipment, you are also improving the energy bills. Comparing improvements with another building, with the improvement that we made using Autodesk Forma we often have results that we can have energy bill savings around 35% to 45%.

The thing that I enjoy more using Autodesk Forma is that, once you have the information already there and you analyze that, you can improve your design, just in a couple of minutes. Exploring different volumes that will make a better design, a better building for the future, and for the community, that was the most, thing that I enjoyed because it’s one tool that can improve the future.