LONDON, UK & NEW YORK, NY, Jan 21, 2015 – Sefaira, the leader in software for high-performance building design, today announced general availability of Sefaira Systems, a new product for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) design engineers that allows them to more easily and cost effectively perform early-stage HVAC system analysis. With this expanded product portfolio, Sefaira now connects engineers and architects directly on one cloud platform, enabling an unprecedented level of collaboration and improved efficiency that is critical to the design of high performance buildings.
Sefaira Systems provides real-time analysis of mechanical systems and envelope options using EnergyPlus, the industry standard building analysis engine developed by the US Department of Energy. Sefaira Systems enables engineers to work directly with the architects’ CAD/BIM data without having to rebuild the architectural model in a complex engineering tool, a process that typically took several hours, even days. Now, in just minutes, engineers can examine multiple design options and provide high quality system sizing and peak load information to their clients. The ability to perform this type of analysis, rapidly and on multiple options, enables design teams to ensure maximum building performance while minimizing construction costs.
Early adopters see significant value
Paul Erickson, LEED AP, principal, Sustainable Practice, Affiliated Engineers Inc. explains, “Sefaira has taken a different approach from other modeling software companies from Day 1. This evolution into Sefaira Systems is a great step forward — it is a recognition of and response to the way engineers work, and moves us towards greater A/E integration at the project onset.”
George Athens, managing principal, Nelson Engineering, said, “As the science of buildings becomes more accessible and performance gains importance in the dialog of design and engineering, along with our clients we need early HVAC analyses done in ever-shorter turnaround times and with an increasing number of iterations. Sefaira Systems allows us to upload architectural models directly into the system which reduces a previously week-long process during which we used to recreate models to a process that only takes a couple of hours. We can now easily respond to our clients’ needs and improve our customer relationships, without challenging our own budget.”
Sefaira Systems addresses a major pain point for target customers
“Energy consultants can meaningfully differentiate themselves by providing robust feedback to their customers within a short timeframe,” said Sefaira product director and professional engineer Andrew Corney. “Until now they’ve often had to try to complete the analysis tasks with overly complex software. Cutting corners by using rules of thumb is increasingly difficult with savvier clients calling for more detail on less familiar solutions. With Sefaira Systems, we are addressing this problem by providing a tool that allows trusted advisers to provide robust early analysis, on time and at low cost.”
Sefaira CEO Mads Jensen said, “The building design industry has often been blamed for being slow to adopt new technology. At Sefaira we believe that this is the result of a lack of intuitive products that can easily be integrated into the very fast-moving and complex building design process. With our products for architects and now our new tool for engineers, we are addressing this problem by providing software that has been designed by industry practitioners. This enables the fast and intuitive analysis that is needed to create truly high-performing building designs.“
Availability and demos at AHR Expo
Sefaira Systems is now available and Sefaira’s team will be available for demos at the AHR Expo in Chicago in Booth #3044.
About Sefaira
Founded in 2009, Sefaira is the leader in software for high-performance building design. Using Sefaira, architects and other building designers now have the real-time analysis capabilities that enable them to practice performance-based design. This enables designers to create buildings that have the very best performance characteristics in terms of energy use, daylighting quality, carbon emissions, thermal comfort, construction and operating costs.
Sefaira won the 2014 Architizer A+ Product + Apps Jury Award, the 2013 Sustainability Leaders Innovation Award and the 2013 ENDS Green Economy – Green Data Award. It has been named to the 2014 and 2013 Global Cleantech 100, the 2013 Red Herring Top 100 Global and the 2012 Going Green Global Top 200 private companies. The company also won Gold at the 2013 Ecosummit Award in Berlin as well as the “Green Building Innovation of the Year” award at London’s Ecobuild in 2011. Sefaira has offices in London, New York and Melbourne.
