EDUCATORS AND STUDENTS

Virtualwind is strongly committed to facilitating educators and students in support of classroom and individual instruction, individual and group projects, research, and development. We are looking to provide tools that educators and students can use to test innovative approaches to building sciences and landscape, and methods for students and research assistants to explore. We are also interested in exploring collaborative research opportunities to create new capabilities and features that can be incorporated into our products and services.

Educators utilize Virtualwind to instruct and guide students how to analyze and visualize:

•   Wind forces and environmental effects on buildings and people, for the purpose of determining safety, comfort and sustainability.

•   Wind and environmental effects on plants and trees and other vegetation used in landscaping, green roofs, living roofs, etc.

•   The effects of structures, topography and vegetation on wind circulation patterns and convective heat transfer  in the development of master plans or site plans for environmental restoration, town or urban planning, urban design, parks & recreation planning, and green infrastructure planning & provision.

•   Micro-climate environments in complex urban locations and in suburban complexes to determine optimal locations for plants, or to analyze requirements for wind-blocks to protect vegetation.

•   Wind effects on the spraying of water and other airborne particulates, including herbicides and pesticides.

Virtualwind enables building educators to work with students to:

•   Easily, quickly and inexpensively create models of their new structure(s) and incorporate those models into larger models of complex urban or rural environments with existing geometries of buildings and geographical features.

•   Conduct analyses of localized (micro-climate) wind speed on several early stage design concepts in order to predict impacts on human and structural safety, comfort and risk.

•   Rectify unacceptable wind patterns early in the design phase before incurring expensive and time-consuming later stage design changes.

•   Understand how to create designs that incorporate best practices related to wind comfort, sustainability, safety and risk.

•   Develop versatility and the ability to consider the microclimate aspects of designs, and to support sustainable design and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) initiatives. For additional details about sustainability, click here.

•   Understand the planning approval process, which requires the ability to clearly demonstrate to regulators and city planners how their design incorporates pedestrian wind comfort, sustainability, and other environmental design considerations.