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Abstract The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of natural resources, including water, materials, and energy. Towards the goal of more sustainable building design, we present a "tiny home" case study that demonstrates a design and analysis of computer experiments (DACE) approach for conducting a comprehensive study of potential building designs. Two cohorts of two teachers each were trained to conduct the DACE approach employing sustainable building design software tools for computer experiments. The DACE approach provides a general set of research tools, consisting of four steps: (1) Calibration of the software tools for the "tiny home" case study, (2) Design of experiments to organize a set of input settings for running the software tools, (3) Execution of the software tools to generate performance outputs, (4) Analysis of the input and output data using statistical modeling. For sustainable building design, the performance outputs represent dimensions related to the pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and prosperity. The first cohort of teachers conducted steps 1-3, and the second cohort conducted steps 2-4. Discussion on the teachers' research experience includes lesson plan ideas. One of the teachers was able to bring the DACE approach to her 8th-grade Green Architecture class. Simplifying the experiment, the teacher was able to have the students look at a case study, design an experiment, run it through simulation software, analyze the results, and draw conclusions. The students were able to see how what they learned in the classroom could be utilized in a real-world situation.
Thomason et al. (Sun,) studied this question.