Service: Building Sciences

Our building science services encompass a holistic range of engineering solutions aimed at optimizing how buildings perform, feel, and endure over time. These services address everything from energy efficiency and occupant comfort to structural resilience and environmental impact. Typical building science services include: 

• Solar studies & daylighting to analyze how sunlight interacts with a building and its surroundings.
• Stack effect analysis to assess pressure-related airflow issues in tall or leaky buildings.
• Mechanical and natural ventilation and indoor air quality strategies to ensure thermal comfort, energy efficiency, and occupant health.
• Sustainability consulting, including energy and water conservation, net-zero strategies, ESG alignment, and certification guidance (e.g., LEED, WELL).
• Acoustics engineering to manage sound for comfort, privacy, and better communication.
• Building envelope and façade consulting, including design, commissioning, performance modeling, and remediation of new and existing enclosures.
• Precipitation management for rain, ice, and snow, using advanced modeling to prevent water damage, pooling, and falling ice hazards.
• Vibration and structural dynamics analysis to reduce motion caused by wind, seismic activity, or occupant movement, preserving both comfort and structural integrity.
• Urban design and master planning with a focus on outdoor microclimates—sun, wind, air quality, noise, and temperature—to improve livability and long-term performance at the site or campus scale.

These services can be applied at any project stage, from early planning and design through construction and retrofit. 

Natural ventilation takes advantage of a building’s climate and aerodynamics to provide outdoor air indoors without the need for fans, heating, cooling, etc. which reduces carbon emissions and can improve the occupant experience. 

Mechanical ventilation brings in outdoor air in a more centralized way, it is filtered, conditioned (i.e. warmed, cooled, dehumidified, etc.) using mechanical means and then distributed via fans, ducts and diffusers. 

Both approaches have their pros and cons. For example, while natural ventilation reduces carbon emissions, in many climates, the outdoor conditions are only comfortable during part of the year and the cleanliness can be impacted by cars, wildfires and exhausts from neighboring buildings. Conversely, mechanical ventilation schemes can provide more consistent indoor conditions (if well designed), but require more energy, and upkeep, and in the event of a power failure they won’t work at all. 

RWDI’s deep experience allows us to understand these complexities to help our clients meet their goals. 

Most importantly, ventilation strategies must be consistent with the need.  

Some spaces are focused on the general comfort of a space and thus are good targets for natural ventilation. In others, the goal is to strictly control indoor conditions so that sensitive materials or equipment are not adversely impacted. Special applications (e.g., laboratories, data centres, smoke control systems) add even more stringent requirements, such as managing contaminant spills and maintaining visibility for first responders. Often, how the air is introduced into a space can sometimes be more important than how much.  A thoughtful ventilation design is one that limits the energy needed by locating supply and exhaust points that work synergistically with the use of the space.