The energy consumption in buildings, which accounts for approximately one-third of the total energy used in the world, can be reduced significantly by employing adaptive façades. In this study, a computational optimization approach is proposed to enhance the energy efficiency of buildings based on the design of an adaptive façade system, which can adapt its thermal and visible transmittance for dynamically varying climatic conditions. The engine of the adaptive façade design approach is an automated optimization process, which combines the building energy simulation program (EnergyPlus) with an optimization technique through Eppy, a powerful Python toolkit. The modified firefly algorithm, an in-house optimization tool, is employed to design the adaptive façade system in this study. However, our proposed method is not tied to any particular optimization tool and does not impose any restrictions on a type of building. To this end, the capability of the proposed method for enhancing building energy efficiency is validated by two case studies, namely a typical single office room and a medium office building. We found that the proposed adaptive façade system can reduce the energy consumption by 14.9–29.0% and 14.2–22.3% for the first and second case study, respectively, compared to the static façades. These significant findings demonstrate the potential of adaptive façades to enhance the energy efficiency of buildings.

建筑物的能耗约占世界总能耗的三分之一，可通过采用自适应立面来大幅降低能耗。在这项研究中，基于自适应立面系统的设计，提出了一种计算优化方法来提高建筑物的能效，该立面系统可以使其动态和可见光透射率适应动态变化的气候条件。自适应立面设计方法的引擎是一个自动优化过程，该过程将建筑能耗模拟程序（EnergyPlus）与通过功能强大的Python工具包Eppy的优化技术相结合。本研究采用改进的萤火虫算法（一种内部优化工具）来设计自适应外观系统。然而，我们提出的方法与任何特定的优化工具无关，并且对建筑物类型没有任何限制。为此，通过两个案例研究验证了所提方法提高建筑物能源效率的能力，即典型的单间办公室和中型办公大楼。我们发现，与静态立面相比，第一个案例和第二个案例研究提出的自适应立面系统可以分别减少14.9–29.0％和14.2–22.3％的能耗。这些重要发现证明了自适应立面可以提高建筑物的能效。即典型的单间办公室和中型办公大楼。我们发现，与静态立面相比，第一个案例和第二个案例研究提出的自适应立面系统可以分别减少14.9–29.0％和14.2–22.3％的能耗。这些重要发现证明了自适应立面可以提高建筑物的能效。即典型的单间办公室和中型办公大楼。我们发现，与静态立面相比，第一个案例和第二个案例研究提出的自适应立面系统可以分别减少14.9–29.0％和14.2–22.3％的能耗。这些重要发现证明了自适应立面可以提高建筑物的能效。