Working share link to your Forma project, view access for the teaching team.
https://app.autodeskforma.com/board/up_b1ucsl7wxr/board_7d923bb7-d508-4ea7-9b53-713f34562800
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.
The maximum sunlight was toward the center of the site, which would be the ideal location to place the building to maximize its daylight potential while also offsetting it from the road, aiding in noise reduction. The wind at the site was relatively low so it did not contribute heavily to the brainstorming process. Daylight potential was the driving force in determining initial building shapes and orientations. All three design options feature seven floors, with the ground floor designated commercial space and the upper floors residential. The first design is an L-shaped building with a rentable floor area of 94,148 square feet. The second option is a square with varying roof heights and has a rentable floor area of 94,383 square feet. The third and final design is a staircase-shaped building, with rentable floor area of 98,294Â square feet and a larger ground floor footprint compared to the others.
Per the instruction video provided by BIMtopia on Canvas, when running the sun hour analysis, the date was set to March 21st for all three buildings. While good for daylight potential, high levels of sunlight can lead to strong heat stress in the microclimate analysis, and design option 2 featured the best balance between the two. Design option 2 also presents the highest percentage of comfortable sitting conditions in the wind analysis, which is crucial when planning for outdoor seating.
When performing noise analysis, the four main roads surrounding the site were assumed to have a speed limit of 25 miles per hour and an ADT of 5000 and the parking lot road that borders the site to the south was assumed to have a 15 mile per hour speed limit and an ADT of 200. The traffic distribution settings were left as the defaults for all roads. The second design option provided the best noise abatement at the site, which resulted in only 26% of facades at high noise levels, while the other two were 43% and 59%. Building two also features the lowest total carbon, which is a major driving factor in my decision making. Overall, building 2 will move forward in the design process because of the analysis results presented above.
I was surprised that proposal 3 had the lowest percentage of comfortable winds. I had created the staircase shape thinking it would direct the predominant winds from the west upward, but that did not appear to be the case.
Three massing images, one per proposal, from the same viewpoint.
