We wish to acknowledge everyone who made this book possible.
First and foremost is my life partner, best friend, and wife, DiAnna, who helped immensely by covering responsibilities, helping flesh out my grammar for the book, and pushing me to complete this effort, and also our son who has offered love whenever needed.
This book would not have been possible without my coauthor, Kaveh, who put an enormous amount of effort into simulating and writing about his work over our three-plus years working together. We began at zero, learning to understand each other and sharing the ideas that would lead to this production. I published some of our work; the rest is still sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to get to it. I compliment his ambition and persistence to push into the unknown, discover value, and question everything. Wherever he ends up after our adventure, he will surely make an impact as he has in this book.
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I wish to first thank interim deans Kim Wilson and Scott Killinger and Architecture Program Director Jeffrey Day for their monetary support for student workers. I would also have had very little luck pursuing this topic without the passion and efforts of all the students over the years who explored the ideas and tested many of the concepts this book highlights. From seminars to design studios, their work planted the seeds that have grown into this manuscript. Finally, I must specifically thank some of the graduate research assistants and undergraduate workers who spent their summers and semesters working on aspects related to this book: Bryce Willis, Brett Virgl, Adam Weise, and Adam Heier.
My strength is not writing; I relied greatly on Ian Rogers for his editorial expertise in fixing all of my grammatical issues, and appreciate the time he spent revising and suggesting changes to the manuscript. In addition, I owe my ability to rely on his support to our business administrator, Jay Penner, who found some money I had sitting around for Ian’s assistance.
I thank the photographers for providing their images and specifically all of the professionals across the U.S. who helped gather the information for the case studies. In alphabetical order:
To all my energy-modeling friends, I thank you for letting me bend your ears about this book and what the professional environment needs. Particular thanks to Nathan Kegel at IES for his contributions to energy modeling and my chapter on climate. I’ve truly enjoyed working with this group of individuals across the world who pursue this frontier of building performance simulation as it relates specifically to energy modeling.
To the academics I have spoken to at other institutions about what they are teaching, how they teach it, and what they use to educate their students with the same values I hold dear. These discussions help inspire me and open my eyes to what great things are happening. There is a lot of work to be done, and it definitely takes all of us, specifically the professionals, to push for carbon neutrality.
I should thank Peter Krebs, the mind behind Sefaira’s energy modeling approach, for his brain and for speaking to me about their software plans and efforts, particularly the free educational license they provide all my students every semester to complete the coursework I thrust upon them. I should also thank the DIVA team’s Alstan Jakubiec, who has helped us with many simulation issues over the years. He has been open and honest about how DIVA works and assisted in finding solutions and strategies for many of our questions. Finally, Adam Caprez, our connection to the Holland Computing Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
To conclude, I thank the editorial team at Routledge, and Grace Harrison, who was available to answer my questions. I am also grateful to Wendy Fuller and Norah Hatch for their help leading up to and at the end of the effort finalizing the manuscript.