“Virtual Design Studio”—Part 2: Introduction to overall and software framework

The “Virtual Design Studio (VDS)” is a software platform for integrated, coordinated and optimized design of building energy and environmental systems. It is intended to assist management, architectural and systems design teams throughout the early to detailed building design stages as analyzed in Part 1 (DOI: 10.1007/s12273-013-0110-2). This paper presents an overview of the VDS design and method of software implementation, including system composition, architecture, graphical user interface (GUI), and simulation solver integration. A VDS user workflow is also illustrated with a simplified design example.