Hey, everyone! For the past two years, EHDD has been working on a decision support tool for low-carbon design at the earliest project phases. The Early Phase Integrated Carbon Assessment (EPIC) is built to support low-carbon planning decisions way before there’s a BIM model or bill of materials. In rough terms, EPIC is designed as a conceptual parallel to ‘shoebox’ energy or daylight models—the results do not correspond directly to a real building but can help us understand which strategies could perform well, are unlikely to succeed, or are worthy of more attention.
Many of you on this forum have been part of our closed beta test over the last few months, and today we’re happy to open the tool up for free use. It’s also developed significantly since our closed beta, so I’d encourage older users to give it another look. Our goal is to keep the tool free and up to date–the urgency of the climate crisis demands nothing less. In return, we only ask that you use, critique, and offer feedback on the tool!
I’m happy to answer any questions about the tool here, at the webinars, or via email at epic@ehdd.com. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, critique, and feedback!
Hey, everyone! Eleven months after our initial release, we have now released a totally updated version of our EPIC tool. It’s available at the same location as before (https://epic.ehdd.com) and reflects thousands of hours of work over the last year. From humble beginnings in Excel, EPIC now has about 2,000 users and dozens of logins each day—an enormous growth that illustrates the growing emphasis on whole life carbon in AEC.
Updates include:
New data sources and data models
Increased data transparency and expanded documentation at epic-docs.dev
Direct integration with Zero Tool for baseline EUI estimates
Direct integration of NREL’s PV Watts for solar PV energy generation estimates
Improvement, expansion, and peer review of structural bill of materials modeling
New features allowing users to refine the scope of EPIC, including or excluding parts of model, to assist with alignment
Ability to enter custom carbon intensity data to assist with setting carbon budgets and tracking projects into later design phases
Streamlined user interface
Other things will stay the same:
EPIC will remain open access—no paywalls around climate action.
We will continue to maintain strict privacy around personal and project data.
Lastly, I want to offer my deepest appreciation to the colleagues and friends (many of whom are on this forum) who have shared use cases, performed peer review, or provided helpful comments along the way. To friends at Mahlum, Gensler, LMN, KieranTimberlake, Sasaki, Moseley Architects, Magnusson Klemencic Associates, EskewDumezRipple, Carbon Leadership Forum, Rocky Mountain Institute, Architecture 2030, the CARE crew, Climate Smart Wood Group, and so many firms and organizations—thank you!
We’re hoping to put on some webinars and will be releasing updated tutorial videos soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions, find any bugs, or want to offer critique–I’m happy to address feedback in the thread below or via email to epic@ehdd.com.
