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Beyond Patterning: Embedding Shading in Opaque Building Envelopes

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 TECHNOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE

Beyond Patterning: Embedding Shading in Opaque

Building Envelopes
Luis Santos1, Nick Safley2
1Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
2College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Kent State University, Kent, OH

ABSTRACT: This research explores the passive solar self-shading of building opaque surfaces through small-scale
patterning embedded in material units. The investigation focused on concrete masonry unit (CMU) blocks as they are
moldable into various patterns and commonly used as uninsulated construction material for exterior walls. With CMU
as the medium for the study, the authors developed surface patterning systems to externally shade the opaque wall
surfaces that might require compound shading due to their solar exposure. The hypothesis is that self-shading buildings'
exposed thermal mass by embedding shading patterns is an opportunity to shave cooling building loads and provide a
performative purpose that goes beyond ornamental architectural patterning. However, current building energy
simulation workflows have limitations in modeling small-scale shading, particularly those embedded within a material
unit. To address this limitation, this work proposes and validates a novel co-simulation method that allows for the testing
and refining of passive shading patterns. Using the proposed approach, it was possible to devise a feedback loop of
material testing and simulation to assess and optimize the energy performance benefits of embedding shading patterns
in an exposed CMU building surface. First, the research examined the potential of optimally shade exposed thermal
mass in a south-facing building using an overhang in warm to hot climates. Then, the authors used the proposed co-
simulation method to design and assess different CMU groove patterns' ability to reduce building cooling loads. The
results show that optimally shade exposed thermal mass can reduce cooling loads by 29% in hot climates, while carving
small-scale shading in CMU can reduce cooling loads by 15%.

KEYWORDS: Building Performance, Passive Cooling, Shading Opaque Building Surfaces, Embedded and Self-
Shading, Façade Patterning.

INTRODUCTION
Currently, most buildings still consume considerable amounts of energy to provide a thermally comfortable environment.
Energy-intensive building operation results in carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. This reality pushes
architects to deploy passive energy conservation measures in their designs. Shading and thermal mass are effective
passive design strategies in hot and dry climates. Although recent studies show that shading the opaque portion of
building envelopes helps reduce cooling loads and mitigates the urban heat island effect (Valladares-Rendón and Lo
2014; Liu et al. 2019), there is little research on the subject, particularly in the case of embedding passive self-shading
in building components with thermal mass properties. In fact, the design, simulation, and optimization of embedded
shades in opaque building surfaces to reduce cooling loads are often neglected, primarily because of the lack of
simulation performance-driven workflows and clear modeling guidelines. As a result, the design of stereotomy relief
patterns in opaque building surfaces is mostly driven by compositional and aesthetical purposes.

This paper examines new ways to model, simulate, and optimize embedded shading systems in opaque portions of
exposed construction elements to reduce building cooling loads in hot and dry climates. To that end, we focused on
concrete masonry unit (CMU) blocks due to their widespread use in construction, structural versatility, thermal mass
properties, and simple fabrication process.

1.0 RELATED WORK

Passive shading is a heat rejection design strategy that is highly effective in both reducing cooling loads and improving
thermal comfort in buildings, particularly in humid and dry hot climates. There is a consistent body of work on designing
and optimizing shading devices to minimize cooling loads. More recent work includes the investigation of Huo et at.
(2021) that optimized external venetian blind systems for different Chinese climate zones and for different orientations.
The authors observed significant cooling load reductions that could reach 65% and developed a new index to describe
the energy efficiency of external shading. Kirimtat et al. (2019) optimized the design of parametric exterior shades for
windows for both daylight and building energy performance. The optimized shades reduced 14% of building energy
consumption while keeping an annual daylight availability above 50% for a Mediterranean climate. Khoroshiltseva et
al. (2016) studied the energy impact of external shading devices in energy retrofit in Madrid, Spain. They estimated
that external shading could reject 17% of solar heat gains, thus helping reduce cooling loads.

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Thermal mass is another passive design strategy that is highly effective in dampening the daily swing of temperature
in hot and dry climates, thus favoring a steadier cool indoor environment in hot and dry climates. Several studies
showed the effectiveness of thermal mass. Thiele et al. (2015) demonstrated that increasing the thermal mass in
exterior walls could reduce annual cooling loads from 53% to 100% depending on the location and building orientation
in California, USA. Reilly and Kinnane (2017) discuss the benefits of thermal mass in reducing interior temperatures in
hot and dry climates. Carlos (2017) simulation study demonstrated that thermal mass could reduce annual overall
thermal loads by 12% to 33% in different locations in Portugal. Lin et al. (2018) conducted an optimization study of
thermal mass with similar results for a building located in Wuhan, China, a humid subtropical climate. Kuczyński and
Staszcuk (2020) showed that replacing lightweight frame walls with cellular concrete shortened the total time when the
indoor temperature is above 28 °C from approximately 19 days to only 8 hours, which can lead to cooling loads
reductions of 67% in a warm temperate climate.

Combining passive shading of windows with thermal mass in hot and dry climates can yield the advantages of both
strategies, i.e., reject heat and, by directly shading thermal mass, enhance its heat sink capacity. Baglivo et al. (2017)
showcased the benefits of shading interior thermal mass in the cooling season in terms of reducing operative
temperature and cooling loads in a warm climate. Al-Saadi and Jabri (2020) combined and optimized different passive
strategies, including the shading of windows and thermal mass in a hot and moderate climate. The optimization study
reduced overall building energy consumption by approximately 17% and 30%, respectively. Sarri et al. (2021) studied
the impact of shading phase change materials (PCM) and reported similar results.

Despite interesting results, most of the investigation on combining passive shading with thermal mass in buildings
focuses on shading the transparent portion of the building envelope and consequently the interior thermal mass. Only
a few studies looked at the potential energy benefits of shading the opaque part of the building envelope. Valladares-
Rendón and Lo (2014) studied the energy impact of shading both the opaque and transparent surface of building
façades in a hot and humid climate. The study shows that shading the entire envelope mitigates the urban heat island
effect and can reduce cooling loads by approximately 9%. Liu et al. (2019) conducted a similar investigation but only
focused on shading the opaque portion of building façades. The authors observed that shading the opaque part of
building façades in a subtropical climate could reduce cooling load by up to 5.6 %.

The investigations presented in (Valladares-Rendón and Lo 2014; Liu et al. 2019) are limited to the use of detached
shading elements that shade opaque building surfaces. In fact, there is little work in assessing the energy impact of
embedded shading patterns in exposed opaque building elements with thermal mass, such as standard grooving
patterns in CMU blocks. Limitations on modeling and simulating the shading effect of embedded micro-shading devices
in building energy simulation (BES) tools hinder such investigation endeavors. In fact, despite the recent incorporation
of sophisticated shading algorithms in state-of-the-art BES tools (Jones, Greenberg, and Pratt 2012), such simulation
tools still have some limitations that make modeling small carved shading patterns in continuous surfaces challenging.
For example, EnergyPlus (Crawley et al. 2001) limits the size of elements preventing, thus, modeling the geometry of
standard grooving patterns of CMU blocks. However, state-of-the-art BES tools such as EnergyPlus can abstract
shading geometry through bidirectional scattering distribution functions (BSDF) and pre-calculated sunlit fraction
schedules. The former only applies to fenestrations, while the latter, despite being simpler, to any surface. This work
will explore such geometry abstraction capabilities to address the limitations of modeling embedded shading for energy-
performance building design workflows.

2.0 RESEARCH GOALS

Considering the limited research on assessing the impact of shading opaque building surfaces and the current BES
constraints in modeling small-sized and embed self-shading, the study presented in this paper aims to:

1. Develop a method to model and accurately simulate embedded shading in the opaque portion of building envelopes.

2. Use the proposed method to:

a. Assess the potential of self-shading non-transparent building surfaces in reducing cooling loads in hot and dry
climates.
b. Design effective embedded shading patterns in simple exposed building elements such as CMU to reduce building
cooling loads.

3.0 METHODOLOGY

To achieve the research goals, the methodology adopted in this investigation had three phases. Phase I consisted of
developing and implementing the modeling approach of embedded shading for BES. Phase II validated the modeling
approach and tested the hypothesis that shading the opaque surfaces of building envelopes, particularly of surfaces
composed of uninsulated thermal mass, contributes to reducing cooling loads in buildings. Finally, in Phase III, we
applied the proposed modeling approach to design energy-saving embedded shading patterns in concrete masonry
units (CMU).
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3.1. Phase I: a building energy modelling approach for embedded shading

The authors developed a co-simulation building energy model (BEM) method for small-sized embedded shading pattern
in opaque surfaces. Given an initial BEM and a set of tridimensional shading patterns samples, the proposed modeling
approach allows designers to embed shading patterns in different surfaces that compose the building envelope. The
co-simulation method is a procedural modeling approach with the following steps:

1. Given an initial BEM, the approach pre-calculates an annual sunlit fraction schedule for the different building
envelope surfaces. An annual sunlit fraction schedule describes the percentage of area that a building surface is
exposed to beam solar radiation in each hour of the year. Although EnergyPlus can compute sunlit daylight fraction
schedules, the proposed approach uses Radiance (Ward 1994). We chose Radiance rather than EnergyPlus because:
a. Radiance handles a broader range of tridimensional geometric descriptions than EnergyPlus. Thus, it will be
essential to calculate the small-size embedded shading patterns simulated in later steps (see steps 3 and 4).
b. Keep the consistency between the sunlit fraction schedules being used by the approach. Although the sunlit
fraction schedules generated by both tools are similar, Radiance is more precise in lighting-based calculations.

The approach samples the building surfaces with a sensor node at their centroid to compute the sunlit fraction
schedules. The sensor is representative of the entire surface area. For each hour of the year, the simulation reports
whether the sensor node is solar exposed. The system stores the annual data in a comma-separate value (csv) file.

2. Given a three-dimensional carved-out shading pattern sample model(s), our method uses a ray-casting process to
map a fine grid of sensors on the sample(s) (see Figure 1). Each sensor is representative of the area allocated to it.

Figure 1: The ray casting process for sampling a 3D object with carved shading. Left: generator of a fine grid of samples parallel to
the object. Center: for each sample a ray is traced. Right: a sensor is placed at the first intersection point of the ray and the 3D object.
Source: Santos and Safley.

3. The system applies the shading patterns to the desired building surfaces. The three-dimensional shading patterns
and the corresponding sensor grids are automatically reoriented to match the solar exposure of their parent building
surface. Then, the system uses Radiance again to calculate the new sunlit fraction schedules for the surfaces with a
shading pattern. Hence, for each hour of the analysis period, the system calculates the number of sensors exposed to
the direct sun. The hourly sunlit fraction results from dividing the number of sunlit sensors in each hour by the total
number of sensors. Then the proposed approach updates the sunlit fraction schedule csv file pre-computed in step 1
with the new sunlit fractions.

4. Finally, the system can run a final energy simulation with EnergyPlus that imports the updated sunlit fraction schedule
csv file. Note that if the embedded shading results from carving out a building surface, the system automatically corrects
the thickness of such building surface to account for the removed material.

It is possible to use the proposed system to simulate any macroscopic shading system. Designers can also use the
system only to generate sunlit fraction schedules. To that end, users could skip steps 1 and 4. We implemented the
system in the Rhinoceros computer-aided design ecosystem using python, grasshopper, ladybug, and honeybee, a
popular front end to EnergyPlus and Radiance.

3.2. Phase II: validation of the main investigation premise and modeling approach
In this phase we first examined whether shading opaque building surfaces is a useful passive cooling strategy in warm
to hot climates. This included the assessment of shading the south façade of a south facing single thermal zone model
in the following locations: (1) Phoenix, AZ, ASHRAE climate zone 2B (hot and dry), (2) Oakland, CA, ASHRAE climate
zone 3C (warm and marine), (3) Miami, FL, ASHRAE climate zone 1A (very hot and humid), and (4) Houston, TX,
ASHRAE climate zone 2A (hot and humid). For each location, we considered two scenarios, the baseline scenario,
which is unshaded, and the shaded scenario, which includes an optimized south-facing overhang for each location that
blocks most of the direct solar beam. Finally, we compared the energy consumption of both scenarios.
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Second, we validated the modeling approach by assessing the deviation between our shading modeling approach and
a standard workflow of computing sunlit fractions in BES. The research compared the impact of estimating annual
cooling loads using sunlit fractions calculated by our modeling method against the ones natively computed by
EnergyPlus. To that end, we performed a paired t-test that examined whether there is a significant change between
the sunlit fraction schedules generated by our approach and those natively generated by EnergyPlus for the same
BEM. Finally, we performed the second validation task using the BEM of the shaded model scenario in Phoenix of the
first validation task, a geometry that EnergyPlus can easily handle.

Figure 2 presents the geometry BEM of the single thermal zone used. As this work focuses on studying the energy
impact of shading opaque surfaces in warm to hot climates, there is no window in the main exposed façade (south).
Nevertheless, a small fenestration (window-to-wall ratio of 10%) was assigned to the opposing façade since it is unlikely
that a thermal zone cannot access daylight and view. This modeling assumption aims to reduce the effect of solar heat
gains through the transparent portion of the building envelope in investigating the potential energy benefits of shading
opaque surfaces. Table 1 describes the u-values and the thermal boundary conditions of the different surfaces that
compose the thermal zone envelope. This work considered the default construction assemblies recommended by
ASHRAE for mass buildings for each climate zone, except for the south façade (or the building surface to shade). The
building surface to shade is a simple wall of uninsulated CMU for the following reasons: (i) insulation has a lesser role
in building energy conservation in warm to hot climates than in temperate and cold ones, (ii) to facilitate the study of
the cooling effect of shading thermal mass in buildings in hot climates, (iii) to prepare the study of an energy efficient
shading pattern for CMU conducted in phase III. Not adding an insulation layer allows to observe in more detail the
impact of shading building surfaces with thermal mass on overall building energy performance. Table 2 presents the
optimal overhang depth per location considered in this validation step.

Figure 2: Thermal zone geometry. Note that the optional overhang is marked with a dashline.Source: Santos and Safley.

Table 1: Boundary conditions and u-values of the different surfaces of the thermal zone.

Surface Boundary condition U-value [W/m2K]

Phoenix (AZ), Houston (TX) Oakland (CA) Miami (FL)
North wall Outside 0.76 0.6 1.63
East wall Adiabatic N.A N.A. N.A.
South wall Outside 2.24 2.24 2.24
(or surface to shade)
West wall Adiabatic N.A N.A. N.A.
Roof Outdoor 0.21 0.21 0.26
Floor Ground 2.01 2.01 2.01

Table 2: Optimal south overhang depth per location used in the first validation task.
Location ASHRAE Climate zone South Overhang Depth (d)
Phoenix (AZ) 2B: hot and dry 1.85 m
Oakland (CA) 3C: warm and marine 2.20 m
Miami (FL) 1A: very hot and humid 1.35 m
Houston (TX) 2A: warm and humid 1.6 m

3.3. Phase III: application of the proposed method in the design of a concrete masonry unit
In this phase, we applied the proposed modeling approach to the design and energy assessment of subtractive carving
shades into CMU blocks. We developed a parametric model to generate different patterns based on a grid of horizontal
and vertical grooves. This orthogonal grid defines potential carving paths and allows the generation of different shading
patterns for different solar exposures. For example, it is expected that horizontal groove-dominated patterns perform
better for south orientation while vertical-based groove patterns for the west or east orientations. The authors decided
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to generate the widest and deepest carving possible to maximize the potential for shaded area. To determine such
width and depth, the authors fabricated different prototypes. Those experiments determined a groove width of 15.8 mm
and a depth of 10 mm. Figure 3 shows the prototypes and the final generative grid of vertical and horizontal grooves.

Figure 3: Groove spacing was determined by material capacity via physical testing to failure during molding (left). On the right, the
resulting groove generator grid with some possible carving paths highlighted in colored dashed lines. Source: Santos and Safley.

As the proportion of the width and depth of the carvings might not result in optimal vertical and horizontal shading
angles for south and west/east orientations, we constrained the parametric model to generate grooves in a stepped
configuration. The assumption is that the existence of both horizontal and vertical elements could compensate for the
nonoptimal shading effect. Additionally, the stepping configuration allows tackling solar orientations other than perfect
south, east, or west. After an initial exploration, we selected five groove patterns from this system to be further
investigated (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: The selected studied carved shading patterns for CMU blocks. Source: Santos and Safley.

Then we used the proposed approach to study the energy performance of all selected patterns for different orientations
in the southwest quadrant, starting from south to west in incremental steps of 15° in Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix was the
selected location as it reported the largest absolute reduction of cooling loads (although not the largest relative
reduction) in phase II. The BEM was the same used in Phase II but without the overhang. First, we used our modeling
method to determine the best shading pattern for each orientation. Since the study only examined five solutions, we
used a brute force method to find the best-performing one. Hence, for each orientation, the goal was to maximize the
objective function expressed in equation (1). Equation (1) measures, for the same building surface, the relative
difference between a year's cumulative sunlit fraction area of a non-shaded and a shaded condition. In summary, it
calculates the annual cumulative shaded area increase caused by a given shading pattern.

𝑓𝑓(𝑡𝑡) ∑𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡=1 % 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠(𝑡𝑡) − ∑𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡=1 % 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤ℎ 𝑠𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝 (𝑡𝑡)
= × 100% (1)
𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 ∑𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡=1 % 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢𝑢ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝 (𝑡𝑡)

After finding the best performing pattern for each orientation, we compared the annual cooling load of applying the
shading pattern against the annual cooling load of an unshaded solution (i.e., the baseline case).

4.0 FINDINGS

The following sections present and discuss the results of phases II and III.

4.1 Phase II
Figure 5 presents the results of the first task of Phase II. It assesses the impact on building energy performance by
optimally shading a south-facing opaque façade composed of CMU units.

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Figure 5: The impact in heating and cooling loads by optimally shading the south thermal zone model, described in section 3.2.

The graph on the left shows that shading the CMU wall reduces building energy consumption in all locations except for
Oakland, CA. Although optimally shading the south-facing CMU wall reduces the cooling loads in Oakland, such
reduction comes at the expense of increasing heating loads. Despite its warm climate, Oakland is dominated by heating
loads due to its cool nights and mild cooling seasons. Since optimally shading the thermal zone in Oakland did not
result in overall building energy savings, we excluded that location from the graph on the right. The bar chart on the
right reports the relative reduction of cooling loads. It shows a cooling loading shaving that ranges from 26% to 29% in
our thermal zone. Such results support that shading opaque building surfaces can be an interesting passive cooling
strategy in hot climates.

In the second validation task, we assess the proposed method's ability to model and simulate small-size embedded
shading for BES workflows. The paired t-test conducted in this task evaluated whether there was no significant change
in using our approach to pre-calculate the sunlit fraction schedules – the null hypothesis. The data set included a sunlit
fraction produced by EnergyPlus and another generated by the proposed approach for the shaded scenario in Phoenix.
The test confirmed the null hypothesis as the p-value (≈ 0.06) was above 0.05, the validity threshold. This means there
is no significant change in using our approach to compute sunlit fraction schedules compared to using EnergyPlus.
After the paired t-test validation, we measured the deviation in simulation output using our modeling approach against
a typical BEM workflow. The deviation in annual thermal loads was negligible, relative error < 2%, which attests to the
robustness and accuracy of the proposed co-simulation method.

4.3 Phase III

Figure 6 shows, on the right, the shading performance of the five selected shade patterns (Figure 4) for different
orientations in the southwest quadrant. Equation (1) expresses the shading performance by measuring the relative
increase of cumulative shaded area for an entire year compared to an unshaded scenario.

Figure 6: Finding the best shading pattern for each orientation. Left: comparison of all the examined patterns for each orientation.
The best shading patterns are outlined. Right: box plot of the increase of the cumulative shaded area of the best shading patterns.

The pattern 1V/1H performed best for the south orientation (180°) and orientation 195°, while 2V/1H presented the best
results for all the other orientations. The figure also shows that the largest variations in performance are for 210° and
225° (southwest) orientations. From orientations ≥ 210°, vertical groove prevalence becomes more relevant. For the
south orientation, a balance between horizontal and vertical grooves outperforms patterns dominated by horizontal
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reliefs. The constraints imposed by the fabrication process made the typical vertical shading angle used for south solar
exposures suboptimal for Phoenix, thus making horizontal-dominated patterns less effective for the south.

Figure 6 box plot presents the distribution of shading improvement of the best-performing patterns. The selected
solutions increase the cumulative shaded area in a year by 33% on average. The box plot shows a compact
performance distribution. However, both graphs indicate that the shading patterns are less effective in handling low sun
angles, as their performance drops between the southwest and west. Figure 7 supports this by showing that the best
pattern for the south is more effective in reducing solar exposure than the one for the west.

Figure 7: Comparison of hourly sunlit area fraction between an unshaded surface and the best shading patterns for south and west.

Figure 8 measures the reduction in cooling load reduction for the best-performing shading pattern in each orientation.
For orientations 180° (south) to 210°, the reduction in cooling loads is relatively stable (15% to 14%). However, the
proposed carved shades are less effective in shaving cooling loads from orientations 225° (southwest) to 270° (west),
which aligns with the findings illustrated in Figures 6 and 7. These findings indicate that the parametric model used to
generate grooving patterns might be limited in generating solutions that effectively tackle low sun angles. Nevertheless,
reducing cooling loads by 10% to 15% through adequately design carved patterns is an interesting result.

Figure 8: Assessing the impact of the best performing shading patterns in annual cooling loads.

CONCLUSION
This work investigated the energy benefits of carving shading into exposed CMU elements. To that end, the paper
advances a novel co-simulation method to overcome the limitations of current building energy simulation tools in
modeling small-sized embedded shades. The results of the experiments that tested the proposed modeling approach
verified its validity, accuracy, and robustness. The first experiment examined whether optimally shading exposed
thermal mass surfaces composed of CMU material units can effectively contribute to building energy conservation. The
results showed that shading exposed thermal mass in buildings can be an effective passive cooling strategy in hot
climates. However, it could increase building energy consumption in more moderate warm climates. The second
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experiment showed that by optimizing embedded shading in exposed CMU can reduce 10% to 15% of the cooling
loads in a hot and dry climate.

Considering that it is impossible to shade the entire area using carved shades, such results indicate that adequately
designing the groove patterns in such basic building elements can contribute to energy conservation in buildings. Thus,
this work shows that there is potential to drive the design pattern of grooves in CMU blocks using performance-based
criteria.

Since this work only focused on the shading of exposed thermal mass surfaces, future work will investigate the potential
of combining the shading effect of carving shades in well-insulated building envelopes. Additionally, the research will
examine the impact of such self-shading strategies on building surfaces composed of opaque and transparent
elements. Finally, we plan to support the simulation-driven results with physical experiments.

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