Interactive Configuration of High Performance Renovation of Apartment Buildings by the use of CSP

This paper is a prospective study which looks at the possibility of configuring high performance renovation of apartment buildings by the use of constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). This study is one part of a project called CRIBA which aims to industrialize high performance thermal renovation of mid-rise (up to seven stories) apartment buildings. The renovation is based on external rectangular panels, always comprising insulation and cladding, and sometimes including, in addition, doors, windows or solar modules. The panels can be fixed directly onto the walls or onto a metal structure around the whole building. With the new thermal envelope and equipment, the building must achieve a really low energy performance of 25 kWh/m/year. A configuration system, based on CSP approaches, will simultaneously enable the interactive definition of the renovation, the associated bill of material (BOM) and the building site assembly process. In Section two, we set out the industrial problem of residential buildings renovation and explain how a configurator can support it. Then, in the third section, the renovation configuration process is described. In the fourth and final section, we present how the renovation configuration can be addressed with constraints, and we introduce relevant CSP approaches. Through out the article, industrial examples illustrate our proposal.