Working share link to your Forma project, view access for the teaching team.
Comparison matrix, one page.
Design memo of 300 to 500 words: what you read in the site, the three strategies, what the analysis said, your recommendation, and the surprise.
Paste your design memo here…
For this project, I wanted to see how changing the shape and height of a building could affect its overall performance while keeping the designs on the same site. One of the biggest things I noticed about the site was how exposed it is to the surrounding streets and buildings. Because of this, I wanted each proposal to use a different massing strategy so I could compare how the building form affected things like sunlight, wind, noise, and daylight. For Proposal 1, I created a stepped building with a taller section on one side and a lower, wider section extending toward the street. My goal was to keep a large amount of floor area while creating more variation in the height of the building. Proposal 2 was much different because I used a tall angled central section surrounded by lower building masses. I wanted to see how a taller and less uniform design would perform compared to Proposal 1. Proposal 3 used a more compact L-shaped form with two wings of different heights. The L-shape was meant to create a more protected outdoor area while still providing a substantial amount of building space. After running the analyses in Forma, I started to see some clear tradeoffs between the designs. Proposal 1 had strong solar exposure across both parts of the building, but the taller street-facing section also had more exposure to noise. Proposal 2 had good solar access and more variation in daylight because of the angled tower, but the tall central mass was also more exposed to wind and noise. Proposal 3 was the most compact design, which helped create more protection from street noise and wind. However, the compact L-shape also created more self-shading and reduced solar access in some areas. If I were choosing one design to move forward with, I would choose Proposal 3. I think it provides the best overall balance between building area, environmental performance, and creating a more protected space for people around the building. Even though it does not perform the best in every category, the analyses showed me that the best design is not necessarily the one that maximizes one individual metric. The most surprising part of this project was seeing how much simply changing the building shape could affect the analysis results. Before doing the simulations, I did not expect relatively small changes in orientation, height, and massing to create such noticeable differences in sunlight, wind, noise, and daylight.
Three massing images, one per proposal, from the same viewpoint.
