Research: Sustainability Program @ JRS

Posted December 16, 2024

This past year, JRS embarked on a new initiative to explore the creation of digital twin site models to enable a more research-based design process. This effort was aided through a partnership with the University of Toronto’s DRIP (Design Research Internship Program), which provides an internship opportunity to a student in the Bachelor of Arts, Architectural Studies Undergraduate Program. We are now integrating parametric computation within our workflows, enabling the rapid digital modelling of existing site conditions, the environmental analysis of modelled site conditions, the iteration of design ideas within the site context, and environmental performance evaluation of ideas.

These digital twin models provide us with a detailed understanding of the environmental performance of existing site conditions such as carbon sequestration via existing vegetation, which we then compare against metrics generated through the computational modelling of design iterations within the design process.

We are excited to bring this approach of streamlined information-driven design to our future projects. We hope not only to explore a more finely tuned and metrically validated design process, but to more meaningfully engage with the communities that we work within and our client and stakeholder groups to establish collective goals related to environmental performance goals, and related monitoring processes post-implementation.