Chaos and Complexity Models in Sustainable Building Simulation

This paper intends to provide suggestions of how sustainable building simulation might profit from mathematical models derived from chaos and complexity approaches. It notes that with the increasing complexity of building systems which are capable of intelligently adjusting buildings' performance from the environment and occupant behaviour and adapting to environmental extremes, building performance simulation is becoming more crucial and heading towards new challenges, dimensions, concepts, and theories beyond the traditional ones. The paper then goes on to describe how chaos and complexity theory has been applied in modelling building systems and behaviour, and to identify the scarcity of literature and the need for a suitable methodology of linking chaos and complexity approaches to mathematical models in building sustainable studies. Chaotic models are proposed thereafter for modelling energy consumption, nonlinear moisture diffusion, and building material properties in building simulation. This paper provides an update on the current simulation models for sustainable buildings.