Buildings create nearly half of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. And AEC firms are challenged to accurately calculate how their designs will impact the performance of a building before construction or renovation begins.
On March 28, a Kansas City-based startup company called PlanIt Impact launched a web application that allows users to determine the environmental and economic impact of a new or renovated building during the design process.
The cloud-based app does this with a 3D assessment tool that incorporates four key aspects of sustainable building design: energy, stormwater runoff, water consumption, and transportation access.
The tool creates a sustainability score for designs by drawing upon open data sources such as U.S. Census, the Department of Energy, City-Data.gov, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Walk Score, which now publishes statistics regarding proximity to amenities like parks, retail, and libraries.
The goal is to make it easier for AEC teams to collaborate, gather real-time information, and model materials costs and the impact of a physical attributes the building and the site.
Dominque Davison, AIA, LEED AP, an architect with DRAW Architecture +Urban Design, is CEO of PlanIt Impact. She concedes that AEC teams could find these data sources on their own. “But the time and energy that would take are considerable. What we’re providing is a low-cost and simple solution that allows teams to work together.”
She went on to say that the platform—which DRAW and its partners have been refining since 2013—“works from a project’s inception to complete. It gives building designs great options to consider all possibilities, and to know the impact of those decisions.”
PlanIt Impact Energy Model scores also translate into energy optimization points for LEED. The tool takes input from any direction and updates its scoring dynamically. PlanIt Impact supports leading software tools, including SketchUp, Rhino, and Revit.
Here’s how it can work: the team designs a building in SketchUp using the PlanIt Impact Palette. The model is imported into PlanIt Impact’s platform, and the user answers a few other questions about the project. Step 3, the user can see and manipulate the results of the sustainability scoring, and compare those results to earlier design versions. And the scoring and designs can be shared with the project’s shareholders.
DRAW Architecture developed this platform with funding from the National Science Foundation/US Ignite (which leverages networking technologies to build the foundation for smart communities), the Mozilla Foundation, and Digital Sandbox, a Kansas City-based firm that provides entrepreneurial financing.
According to PlanIt Impact’s website, a $68 monthly fee gives one user full access to the platform and a SketchUp extension. For $750 per year, one user gets full access plus one hour of training. For $2,000 per year, three users get full access and three hours of training.
Davison says that right now, PlanIt Impact is being marketed directly to AEC firms. And the company is interested in striking relationships with utilities, municipalities, and property management firms.
Related Stories
Sustainability | Jul 27, 2023
USGBC warns against building energy code preemptions, rollbacks
In a recent editorial, the USGBC cited a growing number of U.S. state legislators who are “aiming to roll back building energy code standards and/or preempt local governments from advancing energy-efficient building codes.”
Resiliency | Jul 27, 2023
'Underground climate change' can damage building foundations, civil infrastructure
A phenomenon known as “underground climate change” can lead to damage of building foundations and civil infrastructure, according to a researcher at Northwestern University. When the ground gets hotter, it can expand and contract, causing foundations to move and sometimes crack.
Sustainability | Jul 26, 2023
Carbon Neutrality at HKS, with Rand Ekman, Chief Sustainability Officer
Rand Ekman, Chief Sustainability Officer at HKS Inc., discusses the firm's decarbonization strategy and carbon footprint assessment.
High-rise Construction | Jul 25, 2023
World's largest market-rate, Phius Design-certified multifamily high-rise begins leasing
The Phius standard represents a "sweet spot" for aggressive decarbonization and energy reduction, while remaining cost-effective.
Mass Timber | Jul 11, 2023
5 solutions to acoustic issues in mass timber buildings
For all its advantages, mass timber also has a less-heralded quality: its acoustic challenges. Exposed wood ceilings and floors have led to issues with excessive noise. Mass timber experts offer practical solutions to the top five acoustic issues in mass timber buildings.
Modular Building | Jul 6, 2023
Lennar, Mastry Ventures make multi-million dollar investment in net-zero prefab homes
Mastry Ventures and LENx, the venture arm of homebuilder Lennar, have co-invested in Vessel Technologies’ next-generation housing product.
Apartments | Jun 27, 2023
Dallas high-rise multifamily tower is first in state to receive WELL Gold certification
HALL Arts Residences, 28-story luxury residential high-rise in the Dallas Arts District, recently became the first high-rise multifamily tower in Texas to receive WELL Gold Certification, a designation issued by the International WELL Building Institute. The HKS-designed condominium tower was designed with numerous wellness details.
Green | Jun 26, 2023
Federal government will spend $30 million on novel green building technologies
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will invest $30 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to increase the sustainability of federal buildings by testing novel technologies. The vehicle for that effort, the Green Proving Ground (GPG) program, will invest in American-made technologies to help increase federal electric vehicle supply equipment, protect air quality, reduce climate pollution, and enhance building performance.
Industrial Facilities | Jun 20, 2023
A new study presses for measuring embodied carbon in industrial buildings
The embodied carbon (EC) intensity in core and shell industrial buildings in the U.S. averages 23.0 kilograms per sf, according to a recent analysis of 26 whole building life-cycle assessments. That means a 300,000-sf warehouse would emit 6,890 megatons of carbon over its lifespan, or the equivalent of the carbon emitted by 1,530 gas-powered cars driven for one year. Those sobering estimates come from a new benchmark study, “Embodied Carbon U.S. Industrial Real Estate.”
Mechanical Systems | Jun 16, 2023
Cogeneration: An efficient, reliable, sustainable alternative to traditional power generation
Cogeneration is more efficient than traditional power generation, reduces carbon emissions, has high returns on the initial investment, improves reliability, and offers a platform for additional renewable resources and energy storage for a facility. But what is cogeneration? And is it suitable for all facilities?