The Trilith community boasts impressive features such as a 1,800-seat auditorium, two live audience television stages, 120,000 square feet of creative space, as well as homes, shopping and dining facilities, trails, and parks. Sustainability has been at the forefront of the community’s design, with every aspect carefully considered to ensure its eco-friendliness. However, the Trilith Megaplex building faced a challenge during construction – the projected window-to-wall ratio exceeded the code allowance, which made it impossible to simply follow a prescriptive energy code compliance path. To overcome this, Windward was brought in to model the building and predict its energy usage.
The Windward energy model allowed engineers to evaluate several design options without fully engineering them. This approach helped the client and design team confirm the design’s compliance and prove it to the authority having jurisdiction. As a result of this approach, the project was able to achieve a substantial improvement in energy efficiency over a baseline building, which allowed the project to proceed.
