Passive design assistant

This free software designed by a partnership comprising Arup, The Concrete Centre and AHMM Architects.

This software tool helps demonstrate the passive design principles of buildings to non-specialists, and enables key design variables such as orientation, ventilation and thermal mass to be more easily understood.

The PDA software has a straightforward and intuitive user interface and uses the simple but very effective CIBSE Admittance Method for the thermal calculations. The key output from the tool is internal temperature and heating/cooling loads, both of which are displayed clearly and respond instantly to any changes made to the design. This encourages a ‘what if’ approach to using the tool and gives a feel for the relative significance of specific design factors such as window size/orientation, shading options, insulation levels etc.