Facade automations generate a pattern across a whole building in seconds.
◦ What does the automation know, and what does it not know?
◦ Where did the generated pattern need overriding, and why?
◦ If the automation produces something that analyses well but looks wrong, which wins?
What drives a project team's decision about floor to floor height?
◦ From a developer's perspective?
A developer might want minimal floor to floor height because additional height does not increase the number of units that can be sold and also increases material costs, thus decreasing profit margins.
◦ From a designer's perspective?
A designer would value higher floor to floor heights because it creates the impression of the apartment unit being a much bigger space and raises quality of life within the space.
◦ From an engineer's perspective?
An engineer would want to maintain structural integrity; in my classes on structural engineering, we have been warned about gaps in the ground floor podiums allowing for more damage during earthquakes (”soft story buildings”). This is especially important in a seismically-active zone such as the Bay Area.
◦ From a builder's perspective?
The builder might also want minimal floor to floor height due to increased material costs and opportunities for construction error with increased square footage to be built.
You used an AI assisted layout for a first pass at a typical floor.
◦ What did it get right that would have taken you a long time by hand?
◦ What did it get wrong, and what would it have needed to know?
◦ Who is responsible for errors in a layout a machine generated?
Total carbon can now be estimated before materials are specified.
◦ How much confidence should a team place in that number at this stage?
I do not think a team should place much confidence in the total carbon number at this stage because change in building/structural materials is one of the biggest drivers in how the carbon numbers can change. I did observe a small difference in the total carbon when I changed the window to wall ratio, but I observed much more significant changes when using concrete versus wood materials.
◦ Which decision made this week has the largest effect on it?
The wall to window ratio made the biggest difference this week. One of my proposals had a 40% wall-to-window ratio and another had a 60% wall-to-window ratio; keeping materials constant between the two, this resulted in a 2.34% reduction in total carbon.
◦ How would you present it to a client without overstating its precision?
I would state that the design layout of a building impacts its total carbon analysis, specifically in the form of the wall-to-window ratio; this presents an opportunity to limit total carbon from the outset of a project. However, I would stress that this is just one of several contributing factors and does not impact the total carbon of a building as much as later, structural design and materials decisions.
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?
A proposal is resolved enough to move into Revit when all of the general spaces have been outlined and their functions have been designated. The conceptual and architectural mapping of a project should be fully fleshed out before the technical details are inputted within Revit.
◦ What is the cost of moving too early? Of moving too late?
If you move to Revit too early, you may end up calculating and plotting overly-technical and overly-detailed dimensions for small sections of the project that might end up scrapped because the overall vision of the project changed. If you move to Revit too late, you may have a “perfect” vision that ends up being too technically challenging to implement - but the infeasibiltiy was only visible once transferring to the other platform.
◦ Which parts of your Forma model do you expect to survive the handoff?
I expect the massing shape of my building and the general schematic/pattern for the facade to survive, as well as the floor plan I laid out on the interior. Parts such as the details of how each balcony might be laid out, or how the doors might be designated on the commericial podium portion of the building will likely change in Revit.