Click image to enlarge. Characters interact with the Autodesk sustainability analysis dashboard concept software. The real architects watching Autodesk's video during the opening plenary of Greenbuild 2007 saw some eye-popping software ideas. (Autodesk, Inc., photo)

The architects watching Autodesk's video during the opening plenary of Greenbuild 2007 saw a demo of some amazing software ideas. Tech-savvy architects and LEED APs saw something more: a concept that could completely change the way they work, while breaking down barriers to LEED certification.

For the second year, USGBC chair Rick Fedrizzi asked Autodesk VP Phillip Bernstein FAIA to take the stage. This year, Bernstein, himself a LEED AP, did more than just talk about his company's nascent partnership with the nation's leading green-building organization. This year he showed us a vision for the future of green building design.

Click image to enlarge. The actors worked with the iPhone-inspired Autodesk display in a very natural, tactile way, making adjustments to the on-screen building and seeing the real-time results in the metrics shown on each side. (Autodesk, Inc., photo)

The video showed people silhouetted before a pair of very large touch-screen displays. The photos explain it best. On the display were renderings of a building and tables of metrics such as energy use, daylighting, and IAQ.

The actors interacted with the iPhone-inspired display in a very natural, tactile way, making adjustments to the on-screen building and seeing the real-time results in the metrics.

A dashboard like this would facilitate sustainable design and LEED certification by enabling architects and designers to set LEED goals and always see how they're doing. They could continually calculate such factors as energy use, carbon footprint and daylighting.

Close-up view: LEED points for Materials and Resources are indicated in the box, with overall LEED score and carbon rating given below it. When the design is ready, the architects could submit it to the USGBC electronically and immediately get back a provisional LEED rating. (Autodesk, Inc., photo)

Autodesk suggested the dashboard could be used to track LEED points throughout the design process, and even help achieve additional points that would increase the overall score.

That was all thrilling, but I saw a more important potential behind the concept. Only once did the narrator mention that the building information model was interacting with US Green Building Council servers to analyze the building's LEED rating. When the design is ready, the architects could submit it to the USGBC electronically and immediately get back a provisional LEED rating.

Close-up view: Annual energy consumption and daylight illumination models are updated in real time when architects make changes to the building design. (Autodesk, Inc., photo)

This interaction alone would break through a bottleneck -- LEED submissions today wait months for an answer -- and let teams execute what-if scenarios without delaying their projects.

Now, what could be more intriguing than that? Using the model as an interface for continuous commissioning and BAS monitoring, that's what. Reduce the display to a desktop flat screen and show the expected metrics alongside actual building performance in real time.

Autodesk and USGBC have discussed the idea, I'm told. It's a direction the basic product could take, if Autodesk determines that it would help the building industry and, of course, generate sales. For now, there is no basic product, only the research project. The dashboard was presented by Autodesk and the USGBC as a technology concept, but it is not a commercially available product.

The company is tight-lipped about what product form the concept could eventually take. During the plenary, Fedrizzi lightheartedly called on Autodesk to have the product ready for Greenbuild 2009. Later that afternoon Bernstein gave his reply with a smile: "absolutely not" -- development will be a lengthy undertaking.

More on Greenbuild 2007.

Publicly traded companies mentioned: Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK)