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.
From running a sun hours analysis on the site plan, I found that the site has a lot of direct sunlight. Because the neighbouring buildings are all low-rise buildings, no shadows were being cast onto the site plan. As a result, I found that the site has a lot of potential for solar energy generation, and thus I wanted to design the building around solar panel power generation. The wind analysis on the site plan showed relatively low wind speeds around the area, ranging mostly from 1-2 m/s. As a result, wind generation would likely be difficult.
The sun hours analysis showed that the sunlight came mostly from the southern side, thus I wanted my buildings to face the southern side to maximize sunlight. I based my three proposals off of this idea.
My first proposal is an L-shaped bar and podium building. The first floor is commercial, with 6-storeys of residential apartments on top. The issue with this design is that only one face of the building gets sunlight during the winter, with the north-facing side getting zero sunlight. Additionally, the corner of the L-shaped building receives little daylight. In response, for my second proposal, I tried a U-shaped building to increase the south-facing surfaces. However, I found that this design created more shadows because the southernmost leg of the building casts a shadow on the other leg of the building, leading to lowered sun hours and daylight. For my final design, I made a rectangular bar and podium building, with the residential building being 7-storeys tall. This design had no issues with shadows in the wintertime, and had more direct sunlight throughout the year. Additionally, all faces of the building received 40% daylight.
My recommendation is to move forward with the third proposal. Because the goal of the design is to install solar panels, proposal three provides the most access to sunlight and daylight. Additionally, several faces of the building can be used for solar panel installation, including horizontal and vertical surfaces.
I was surprised that the rectangular building was better at getting sunlight compared to the L- and U-shaped buildings. I thought that the greater surface area facing the direction of the sun in the first and second proposal would be best for sunlight and daylight. Instead, it left half or more of the building completely shaded. On the other hand, the more simply shaped rectangular building better maximized solar potential.
Three massing images, one per proposal, from the same viewpoint.
