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
I was excited to get out of my comfort zone regarding design. I’m still working on being able to translate my vision to a model. I’m really leaning toward a circular design, which I think will be able to showcase an SMR exhibit the best. I considered a couple of different circular forms. One of the forms that I chose, the boxy one, is admittedly very boring. However, considering my most important design anchor - highlighting nuclear energy by showing the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) in the center of the building (see screenshot below) - will require me to form the building around the reactor. I really like the circular building, as I think it goes the best with the SMR exhibit I’m considering.
Images of Your 3 Design Proposals
Paste screenshots of your 3 proposed building forms here...
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…
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.
Again, I’m still working on getting better at creating model forms. I was initially leaning toward one of the circular forms, as I believe it will be the best way to showcase the SMR. I have a couple of other ideas that are similar to the multiple circle form. I’ll be testing those ideas as we develop our models.
Considering my most important design goal - complete on-site power generation - I don’t believe either of the three forms are much better or worse than one another. I may supplement the on-site nuclear power generation with solar power generation, but a quick look at the solar energy analysis shows negligible differences between the three forms.
Considering another design goal - maximum daylighting - it seems that the single cylinder design is the best. It clearly provides the most square footage for potential daylighting.
As seen below and as I’ve mentioned before, my plan is to showcase an SMR in the center of the building, and I believe the best way to do that would be with a circular building. Since the biggest difference among my goals and the concept models analysis is in daylighting potential, I think the “best” design, for now, is the single cylindrical building.
There are a couple of tradeoffs for choosing the single cylindrical form. One is that it may be harder to segment the building into different spaces if there is just one overall form for the building. The footprint of the SMR may take up a lot of floor space, in which case I’ll have to be deliberate about the space layout considering other requirements. Another tradeoff is that the building may be difficult to construct. In general, circular buildings offer more construction challenges than straight-edge construction. This could lead to more cost and more time for construction.
