Adaptive everything

Honeybee is Out and Flying! Illuminance study for the Hudson Yards Culture Shed. We are excited to announce that our own Integration Applications Developer Mostapha Roudsari has recently released Honeybee, his second plugin for environmental analysis, as well as a new version of Ladybug! Honeybee is an ongoing, open source project to connect Grasshopper with validated daylighting and energy simulation engines, such as RADIANCE , Daysim , EnergyPlus and OpenStudio . The current version of Honeybee includes 64 components that enable users to prepare and run a variety of daylight analyses. Here are some of the capability highlights of the current Honeybee release: Prepare geometry: Users can create geometry for simulations by either starting with a mass that can quickly generate zones, or creating the geometry surface by surface to maximize freedom and control. Generate RADIANCE materials: Users can generate a wide variety of Radiance materials by either specifying a material color o...

Innovation Moves Ahead The latest round of research funding has been awarded by Thornton Tomasetti’s R&D group, and staffers in several offices and practices are hard at work on bringing these new ideas to life. Projects underway include several sustainability analysis tools, a computer language training program for technical staff and a study on the implications of performance-based wind engineering. These projects were based on proposals submitted to Thornton Tomasetti’s Innovation Suggestion Box, which was launched last year. Funding for these research proposals allows Thornton Tomasetti employees to spend time outside of billable projects to develop unique ideas to improve operations across the firm. In a sense, the R&D initiative gives us a little breathing room to think big. Anyone in the firm can propose a research project, with submissions collected approximately once every quarter. In addition to getting resources allocated for their projects, employees whose proposals...