Woods Bagot has announced it will now utilise climate change modelling tool WeatherShift by Arup, which factors in custom weather data that accounts for rising temperatures in the locations of new projects.

Standard meteorological data is now less useful in comparison to WeatherShift, which has now been successfully trialled across four projects by the practice.

The program relies on a morphing technique to take traditional 8,760-hour digital weather files and transform them based on climate change scenarios established by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC).

“Urban heat tops the charts for risks associated with the climate crisis, and yet most buildings around the world are still being designed using Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) weather data,” says Russell Fortmeyer, Global Sustainability Leader at Woods Bagot

“Typically, when designing a new building architects will model future energy demands using data that reflects climate conditions from the previous 30 years and assume the most typical conditions from that period will exist over the life of their project.

“But the key issue is that our energy models, thermal comfort models, urban microclimate studies - whatever it is you may be modelling and analysing in the digital space - reflects a climate that no longer exists.

“The extreme heat waves and expanded summer seasons we now see are just the start of a century of increasing temperatures, none of which are reflected in a TMY weather file an architect might download.

“There is so much talk of risk in our industry right now, so we see this as a way to bring evidence to the table that can better inform our clients rather than simply frame issues as unsubstantiated concerns.”

WeatherShift analysis factors in temperature, relative humidity, and wind data that has a high likelihood of representing future conditions given the relentless pace of climate change this century. The data assists an architect in evaluating building and outdoor space performance according to expected conditions, allowing them to simulate energy performance or microclimate conditions to then inform current design decisions around orientation, massing, surface materials, and envelope performance.

“This provides our design teams with a way to frame early support for passive design opportunities like natural ventilation, solar control, thermal comfort, or daylighting in a way that can anticipate likely scenarios of increasing temperatures.” Fortmeyer says.

“Comparing it to the historical TMY output may alter our appreciation for how the solar reflectance index of a pavement finish impacts heat islands, or whether the number of hours you can comfortably naturally ventilate an office building makes sense.”

Woods Bagot will use WeatherShift data across its studios in Australia, China, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe, North America and New Zealand.

“In every city we work, extreme heat is a key climate risk and, by using WeatherShift, we have embedded future weather data as an option in our own Environmental Performance Toolkit (EPT),” says Fortmeyer.

“The EPT is a set of modules we have developed for our workflow to help teams quickly assess environmental design opportunities early enough in the concept phase to inform major design decisions.

“This approach is not going to answer every question we as designers have, nor will it unlock some secret knowledge about our practice and climate change, but it provides credible evidence as a basis for conversations with our colleagues and clients about risks.”

Woods Bagot's 405 Bourke Street commercial precinct.

Jarrod Reedie

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