Facade automations generate a pattern across a whole building in seconds.
◦ What does the automation know, and what does it not know? The automation only knows math. It knows how big the outside wall is and follows your rules for window size and spacing. It does not know anything about the inside. It is completely blind to bedroom layouts, interior walls, or where the elevator is.
◦ Where did the generated pattern need overriding, and why? I had to fix the corners and the elevator area by hand. In the corners, the automatic windows didn’t match my room sizes and looked weird. I also deleted the windows over the elevator and emergency stairs because the program put glass over solid concrete walls, which makes no sense. ◦ If the automation produces something that analyses well but looks wrong, which wins? Design wins. A computer might give design with a perfect solar score, but if a window cuts through a bedroom wall or shows the elevator cables to the street, nobody will want to live there. The data helps, but the building must look good and work for real people.
Total carbon can now be estimated before materials are specified.
◦ How much confidence should a team place in that number at this stage? They should treat it as a rough guess, not a final number. It just shows if your design is moving in a good or bad direction. I saw this when the tool broke for a bit because my model was too detailed, it proved the software only looks at the big shape, not real construction.
◦ Which decision made this week has the largest effect on it? The most important decision was choosing the permanent shape of the building and the final window configuration. Once you lock in the form of the building and the layout of the windows, it becomes a permanent choice. The building is built exactly like that, and its form stays that way forever. This structure decides how much sunlight the rooms trap and how much energy the building will use for its entire lifespan.
◦ How would you present it to a client without overstating its precision? I would tell them: "This chart shows we are on the right track for saving carbon, but the numbers will change once we pick the actual concrete, wood, and materials later on."
At some point a conceptual model has to stop being conceptual.
◦ How do you know when a proposal is resolved enough to move into Revit? It is ready for Revit when the big shape is locked, the stairs and elevators are in the right spot, and the solar studies look good. Once you stop changing the outside box, you are ready to move.
◦ What is the cost of moving too early? Of moving too late? If you move too early, you waste time drawing details in Revit for a building shape that might fail a solar test later. If you move too late, you’d waste time fighting Forma, trying to draw details that the software wasn't made to handle.
◦ Which parts of your Forma model do you expect to survive the handoff? The main building shape, the number of floors, the position of the elevator, and the general window layout will survive, or so I hope. I think the specific thickness or more technical details will probably be wiped out by the software.