A collaborative environment for energy-efficient buildings within the context of a neighborhood

This positioning paper explains our approach to creating a collaborative environment to assist multi-disciplinary teams in designing better energy efficient buildings with consideration of their neighborhoods. A scenario-driven approach was used here to define the energy related activities, the actors involved and the tools required to perform these activities. More specifically, the paper has a focus on energy matching activities throughout the whole product's life cycle. The paper will go on to suggest an appropriate User Interface to allow multi-disciplinary teams to collectively explore various solutions as they visualize BIM models and data models in a 3D interactive workspace to achieve optimum energy efficient buildings at neighborhood level.