How can building performance simulation data be more impactful in influencing building design early in the design process? While design teams increasingly use simulations to guide performance-driven decisions, results are often communicated through lengthy reports, dense tables, or oversimplified graphics. This ends up limiting their usefulness for architects, owners, and other stakeholders.

This 90-minute session, led by the Project StaSIO team, focuses on effective storytelling through data visualization as a way to translate complex analysis into clear, compelling narratives that meaningfully inform early design decisions. Project StaSIO is a public, online sharing platform supported by IBPSA-USA, envisioned as a resource for building performance professionals seeking innovative ways to graphically communicate simulation results.

The session begins with a 60-minute interactive workshop centered on data visualization strategies and techniques. The first part will include a focused presentation on best practices for visual storytelling with data, with particular emphasis on building performance simulations in early design. The presentation will identify common analysis scenarios faced by designers and energy modelers, and highlight how misalignment between the intent of an analysis and the way results are visualized can lead to ambiguity or misinterpretation. The session will outline a structured process for defining analysis intent, selecting appropriate levels of modeling input and output granularity, and choosing visualization methods that clearly communicate design-relevant insights. The second part of the workshop will be hands-on. Participants will engage in guided exercises to reframe performance data and simulation outputs into clearer, more impactful visual narratives. Working individually or in small groups, attendees will explore how different visualization choices can reveal trade-offs, clarify priorities, and better support conversations with multidisciplinary teams and decision-makers. This portion of the session reinforces that effective data visualization is not only about graphic clarity, but about aligning visuals with design questions and decision-making goals.

The final 30 minutes of the session will include the official announcement of the Project Stasio 2026 Annual Competition winners, followed by presentations on their work. The award-winning projects will demonstrate how thoughtful visualization can elevate simulation outputs from technical documentation to persuasive design tools that influence real-world outcomes.

By combining foundational concepts, applied practice, and exemplary case studies, this workshop equips participants with practical frameworks to move beyond reporting and toward storytelling—empowering building performance data to play a decisive role in shaping high-performing buildings from the earliest stages of design.

Note other Stasio comittee members will join as authors as availability to come to simbuild solidifies.