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.
For this project, I thought through three different concepts for housing:
- A minimalistic apartment building where the bottom floor contains a supermarket. This option is more suited towards families, and gives access to food right at the bottom of the building.
- A more abstract design wherein there’s a restaurant/group of restaurants on the bottom floor, with a dining/gathering area above it on the top of the cutout. This would serve more towards younger couples, with the extra space facing the bay and more focused on community.
- A more spread out courtyard with different outlets in each zone. Some examples for spaces could be an indoor gym, restaurants, theatre, gathering space, or bar of some kind. This more spread out layout allows for more versatility within the space.
When surveying the land, I noted how much open space there was for designs (hence why the designs are all on different amounts of land and use different spaces). I also noticed the slant that the whole house rests on, and its proximity to the ocean. This area is in a neighborhood, but a sparsely populated one that also has a nearby grassy area with a baseball field.
I ran the various tests for each location and included a condensed version of the information on the matrix. The analyses pointed towards these general directions:
- Option 1, being the most compact and simple design, would be the best option for SF if condensed down and is also the best option for minimizing carbon impact during construction. It is also the option with the most sunlight (due to the lack of shading provided by the building).
- Option 2 is the more sustainable option in the long term, as it has the lowest carbon footprint during operation. Additionally, the shade provided by the overhead roof would create a naturally cool area which would help cool the rest of the room beneath it. So heating costs and carbon footprint are both lower. It also has the highest amount of square footage while limiting the site area.
- Option 3 exists as a good median between the two. There is a good amount of shade across the whole area, and it uses the space effectively with the courtyard. However, the carbon costs are much higher than the other options.
I believe that option 2 is the best option for this case. Option 1, while being efficient, does not provide a lot of shade and is not very inviting. Additionally, a supermarket would not be very well placed if there is limited to no parking space as noted by the brief. Option 3 has a large cost (both in carbon and money), and falls short of the other options in every category.
I was surprised with how close the embodied carbon was between options 1 and 2. I had thought that option 2 would contain much more carbon due to its larger design, and while it does it does not seem to be by a large margin.
Three massing images, one per proposal, from the same viewpoint.
