Good evening to all SBE blog readers, my name is Rayhan and I will be starting as an ESD intern at SBE starting from July up until September 2026. This is my very first internship log.
My journey up until I became an intern here is a really unique one, I began as a mechanical engineer in my home country of Indonesia, focused on building utilities and then transitioned into fire engineering.
As a fire engineer, I was assigned to a high rise residential and high-rise mixed-use office project as a subcontractor engineer. These two projects were mandated to follow some newly developed green building guidelines and I had some exposure to the project’s external ESD professionals. I found their approach (combining building physics and architectural problem solving) intriguing. I soon decided that I wanted to pursue this kind of specialization.
Fast forward three years, here I am as a final year Master’s Student (Master of Environment, Energy Efficiency Modelling and Implementation, University of Melbourne) interning at SBE as a part of my final course and a first stepping stone to a career in the field.
Prior to commencing the internship I took the initiative to complete 10 courses on the energy simulation software ‘Better Building’ (formerly known as Speckel), which is used at SBE. I taught myself some of the basics, including:
1. Geometry: Residential
2. Geometry: Commercial
3. 2D to 3D Specification
4. Daylight
5. Green Star: Daylight
6. Total R-Values
7. Detailed Shading
8. DtS Façade Calculations
9. NCC 2022 J1V3, and
10. Part J4: Building Fabrics
My initial impression of the Better Building software is that the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) are very intuitive and easy to pick up for a first timer. What I usually do with HAP or IESVE can be streamlined rapidly (and cleanly). Another feature that I think will be useful in the future is the automatic various compliance checking that is integrated with the building model, such as the J4D3, J4D4, J4D5, J4D6, J4D7, J1V3, and J1V5. As you may noticed, Better Building has already made sure to fit into the Australian context. For my personal growth, I look forward to exploring more features especially the HVAC and J1V5 simulation components.
Finally, on the onboarding day. We made sure to finalise the job list for 3 months ahead. Excited for this first journey as a professional ESD consultant.