Working share link to your Forma project, view access for the teaching team.
Design - 300 S Mathilda Ave, Sunnyvale, CA, 94086, United States
- Teaching team was added as viewers to the project (no option to create a link)
Comparison matrix, one page.
Module 2 Comparison Matrix - Fall 26 - CEE 120A_220A - Zhu - Autodesk Forma Board
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.
For my project, I chose a site in downtown Sunnyvale, close to the Caltrain station. The building was assumed to be retail space on the ground floor and upper workplace floors. Based on the comparison matrix results, focus was placed on the sun hours, daylight potential, and noise analysis when making recommendations. Wind and microclimate did not change substantially across the three different proposals and were thus omitted from the decision-making process. For my first proposal, I developed a U-shaped massing, with a central inner courtyard, facing a residential road to reduce noise. My second proposal included a L-shaped tower and podium structure, which aimed to decrease noise impacts from the main road while improving the sun hours and daylight potential of the building facades compared to the U-shaped massing. The final proposal used a tower and podium structure with a central courtyard, to further decrease noise impacts.
From the analyses, Proposal #2 performed best in terms of sun hours, with 80% of facades receiving direct sun for at least 3 hours versus 67% for Proposal #1 and 74% for Proposal #3. In terms of noise, the inner courtyard in Proposal #3 helped shield some of the noise from the adjacent roads, creating a much quieter internal environment, while Proposal #2 outperformed Proposal #1, with more low decibel areas, which is better for an office environment. Comparing the daylight potential analysis results, Proposal #2 had much more uniform daylighting than Proposal #1 and Proposal #3, due to the open L-shaped podium. The design for proposals #1 and #3 had more areas that got very little daylight due to the increased number of corners/enclosed areas.
Based on these analyses, it is recommended to move forward with Proposal #2. Proposal #2 outperformed both other proposals in terms of daylighting; this allows the design to take advantage of natural light to light up interior spaces and reduce its lighting system energy use. Similarly, Proposal #2 receives more hours of direct sun, which can be used to power solar panels and contribute to building sustainability. When looking at the noise analysis, although Proposal #3 outperformed Proposal #2 in terms of percentage of reduced decibel areas, noise can also be mitigated through other decisions made in the design process, such as soundproofing walls. Taking into consideration the other two factors (daylighting potential and sun hours), it is thus recommended to move forward with Design #2.
One place where the analysis disagreed with my instinct was in the noise analysis for Proposal #2. I assumed that the interior part of the L-shaped podium would still have significant noise, as it’s completely open to one of the smaller residential roads. However, it was a surprised to find out that, although the area closest to the road still had a significant decibel level, the L-shaped podium helped shield some of the noise impacts on the eastern side of the building. This resulted in much lower decibel levels than expected in the interior region of the L-shaped podium.
Three massing images, one per proposal, from the same viewpoint.
Proposal #1
Proposal #2
Proposal #3
