Geometry - Residential
This 90-minute course focuses on mastering residential building geometry and specification within the Better Buildings application. Designed for professionals, it covers essential skills from project setup to advanced modelling techniques.
Key Course Content
This course introduces you to comprehensive building geometry modelling using a practical two-storey house demonstration model featuring varied roof systems, a garage, and common residential spaces. You'll learn how to initialise projects by defining geographic location, number of storeys, and floor-to-floor heights whilst working in 'designer mode' to focus purely on geometry creation without getting caught up in specific code workflows during initial setup.
You'll master the fundamentals of drawing setup and calibration, learning to create new drawings for each level and import architectural PDF/PNG underlays that you'll calibrate using known dimensions like window widths. The course teaches you to precisely align multi-level drawings using common origin points to ensure accurate vertical stacking, then moves into detailed zone modelling where you'll draw and edit thermal zones for various spaces including garages, bathrooms, hallways, living areas, and kitchens. You'll develop skills in snapping nodes, adjusting zones for precise dimensions, and splitting combined spaces into separate thermal areas for accurate analysis.
A significant focus covers elemental specification and tagging, where you'll learn the crucial role of 'tagging' to efficiently group similar windows and doors, assign correct geometric dimensions, and apply thermal performance specifications like U-values and SHGCs consistently across multiple elements. The course covers modelling internal elements such as air walls for connecting spaces and internal doors for airflow networks, plus external elements like shading from adjacent buildings and solar PV arrays on roofs. You'll also tackle roof system modelling including pitched and flat roofs, learn to define pitches and eaves, troubleshoot common geometric errors, and assign appropriate space types to ensure your model is fully prepared for detailed energy and daylighting simulations.
Learning Outcomes
Participants will gain a solid foundation in using Better Buildings to efficiently create, specify, and manage detailed residential building geometry, preparing them for advanced energy and daylighting simulations.
Course Completion
A Certificate of Completion will be awarded upon achieving an 80% pass mark on the final quiz.
Support Material
The course uses a residential development example, specifically the "Telopea House" in Sydney.
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