Design Journal Entry - Module 4

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Journal Entry For
Module 4 - Conceptual Design - Building Context & Passive Design
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Created
Jan 31, 2025 5:52 AM
Last Edited
Jan 31, 2025 9:23 PM
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Natalia Seniawski
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https://pin.it/7idDoFsqa

Your Design Journal entries for this module should highlight:

  • the design alternatives that you modeled and tested
  • the results of the analyses and how they influenced your thinking about how to move forward

Use text , images, web links, movies... Whatever media works best to express your ideas!

Images of Your 3 Design Proposals

Paste screenshots of your 3 proposed building forms here...

Proposal 1

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Proposal 2

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Proposal 3

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Side-By-Side Comparisons of Your Analysis Results

Paste at least 2 screenshots showing the side-by-side comparisons of the analysis results for your 3 proposed building forms here…

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Your Recommendation for the “Best” Design Option

Create a few paragraphs outlining a brief explanation of why you chose this design option as the “best” after comparing your analyses of the proposals. Explain your reasoning and the tradeoffs that influenced your decision about which design option to move forward with.

Analyses chosen: June 21 Sun Hours and Daylight Potential: Since I chose the site of Rio de Janeiro, which is a hot area, I want to keep in mind the effects of the sun on my design from the beginning. Trying to maximize the placement, orientation and sizing of my building to avoid excessive heat exposure, but also get good access to natural light.

Proposal 1: Two buildings, one taller and one shorter. The taller building mass gets more sunlight on the backside on upper floors. Smaller building does not receive many sun hours. Proposal 2: One larger mass, central, 5 floors. Only one side that doesn’t have a great daylight potential. Proposal 3: One building with two subtle wings. Lots of good daylight potential on the corner facing the intersection. Back side of building is blocked by tall skyscraper neighboring, but that would be difficult to avoid with a smaller building.

All three proposals were pretty similar in terms of Daylight potential, as none of them were dramatically different in terms of scale (none were taller than the significantly higher building behind, for example).

I’m going with proposal 2, one solid mass, as having a taller building was creating excess shading in proposal 1. Proposal 2 also maximized the space within the building, unlike the other two, which are broken up. Proposal 2 gets the best sun hours exposure, and making it at least 5 floors seems to minimize shading from the neighboring building behind. Though with this option I won’t be able to have much room on the site for green spaces on the ground plane, which I was aiming to do with the other two proposals, I can find creative ways to incorporate community green spaces into the building itself, perhaps on the roof or with a central corridor.

I will play with the actual shape of the building in the next few modules, but am glad that I decided on having one central massing form that takes up almost the entire site, as that seems to result in the best access to sunlight and space use efficiency.