ASHRAE is looking for participants for its fourth annual LowDown Showdown Modeling Competition. The competition is held in conjunction with the 2018 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild Conference, co-organized by ASHRAE and IBPSA-USA, Sept. 26-28 in Chicago.

Teams will compete to design and model a near zero energy, 60,000-sq-ft newly constructed museum with retail space and a full service restaurant located in Denver.

“The focus of the 2018 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild is the adoption of new techniques and work processes to meet the growing challenges faced by today’s designers and modelers,” says Annie Marston, competition committee chair. “The LowDown Showdown is a fun, collaborative opportunity for conference attendees to engage and learn. Teams will be judged not only on how close they get to zero energy, but on the creativity of their design and the use of innovative new technologies and approaches.”

Each team will create and submit a poster of their building design, a performance analysis model and results spreadsheet, and write a one-page narrative on project workflow.  Participants will also be required to submit one graphic to Project StaSIO, an online crowd sourced repository of modeling graphics and images.

Participants are matched up according to software proficiency and teams will be evaluated in six categories: energy, teamwork, practicality, creativity, calibration, and presentation. Prizes will be awarded for the top three teams and conference attendees will vote electronically for the fan favorite. The results will be announced at a reception during the conference.

The deadline to sign up for participation is April 16. To sign up and for more information on the 2018 LowDown Showdown, visit www.ashrae.org/4thlowdown.