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Description
Based on Module 5, two custom nodes to calculate cumulative solar insulation and total cost are added into the previous testing node. The solar insulation node consists two custom nodes of select non ground surface and analyze solar insulation based on input building form, weather, time and spacing between analysis points. The total cost node consists two custom nodes of calculate mass floor areas and calculate total cost by floor levels based on input cost and height for lowest and highest level, and story height. The two new metrics are then combined with three previous metrics, being output and stored in Excel. To evaluate all the testing cases, based on the building performance and economics requirements, three tested parameters (gross surface area, solar insolation and total cost) are combined together with three weighting factors and a base score of 10. Since we want to minimize the surface area and construction cost and maximize the solar insolation potential, the weighting factors for gross surface area and construction cost are negative, while the factor for solar insolation potential is positive. Therefore, the most desired testing case will have the highest positive score. It is highly possible to have tradeoff that the lowest construction cost, lowest surface area and highest solar insolation potential may not happen within the same case. I personally think cost will be the most dominant factor in decision making, so I make the weighting factor of -2 for construction cost, 1 for solar insolation, and -0.5 for gross surface area. With all the scores, we can rank the cases and choose the top three proposals. As shown in the Excel table, the best choice has base length B of 350 ft and top rotation of 15 degree. It is considered as the best choice because it satisfies all the requirements in gross floor area and plan view dimensions. It also has the highest score with the lowest construction cost, the lowest gross surface area, and the highest solar insolation potential among all testing cases.