Interactive guide inspires building professionals to make smart, sustainable design decisions

Autodesk and XPLANE | Dachis Group brought together visual thinking and sustainable design best practices to create an interactive experience that inspires construction, engineering and architecture professionals to minimize the economic impact of building projects.

Challenge | Autodesk has made it a mission to positively impact sustainability efforts by providing new technologies that inspire smart, innovative and green designs. Sustainable design is a broad and complex topic that is understood at varied levels amongst architecture, engineering and construction professionals. Autodesk wanted a straightforward way to help these professionals understand how to make the most efficient use of energy, water, materials and land. The company was looking to develop a guide that would outline the different design considerations at every step of the process, provide information to inform good decision making and map that information to Autodesk software solutions. In creating such a guide it was very important to address each step in the process, ensuring that all stakeholders’ needs were met and driving positive decisions throughout the entire project lifecycle.

Action | Having worked with XPLANE in the past Autodesk recognized the benefit in partnering with the company again to sift through the vast information, organize it in a way that was clear and understandable and develop a visual tool that would be easy and engaging when navigated. The strategic Discovery Session gave the XPLANE consultant and designer the opportunity to delve into Autodesk’s communication priorities and listen to what was most important to convey to customers. The result of this session was the decision to develop a very customer-focused online guide that would foster greater understanding and appreciation of sustainable design amongst Autodesk’s target audiences.

The resulting interactive experience features a unique graphical user interface that presents the user with two options, New Construction or Renovation. The guide offers virtual walk-throughs for all phases of a new design or renovation project, allowing visitors to view key decision points at each stage of a building’s lifecycle. Along the way, users can learn how to effectively use building information modeling (BIM) for green analysis, visualization and simulation, and to foster multidisciplinary collaboration from the earliest stages of a project and throughout the building lifecycle.

Results | The new Autodesk Guide to Sustainable Design site is available online at www.autodesk.com/sustainabledesignguide where it is being shared with key stakeholders in the building industry. Free to users, the new guide helps meets Autodesk’s goal of helping architecture, engineering and construction professionals make faster, more informed decisions about the use of energy, water, materials and land that can deliver better results with a smaller economic impact.

“Our development process involved many stakeholders and XPLANE was incredible in listening and responding to feedback. The end result speaks for itself.”
– Catherine Palmer, industry marketing manager, Architecture, Engineering & Construction solutions, Autodesk