Working share link to your Forma project
One page facade comparison showing both options with their metrics
Typical floor plan image with unit types or zones labelled, plus the unit mix schedule
One AI render of the chosen scheme
Design memo of 300 to 500 words: how the massing changed from Week 2 and why, what the facade studies showed, what you chose, and where you overrode the automation
In Week 2, I had designed the building massing to be aligned with the edges of the proposal property, which did not intersect at a right angle. Thus, when attempting to transition to a massing with gridlines in which I could easily calculate areas and split the building into geometric sections, the crooked orientation of my original Week 2 building massing proved prohibitive. I reoriented the building so that the two forks of the L-shape intersected at a right angle and trimmed the residential portion of the building so that the commericial ground floor podium extended significantly in either direction. This allowed me to increase the width of the building so I could follow the 30-feet per apartment, 6-feet per hallway rule of thumb, while still maintaining approximately 100,000 square feet of total area.
I was able to create a unit distribution of 16.5% studio, 44.1% 1 bedroom, 22.0% 2 bedroom, and 11% 3 bedroom. While this is less 2 bedrooms than I had initially aimed to create, this arrangement allowed for each room to have within 5% of the target square footage. For my two facade options, I created one proposal in which every apartment had at least one balcony (many had multiple) and I created another proposal in which only about 50% of apartments had a balcony. Proposal one saw my 20-foot facade module have a window to wall ratio of 36.3% and my 30-foot module have a window to wall ratio of 37.9%. Proposal two involved replacing balconies with windows for sunlight to stream through; this proposal’s 20-foot and 30-foot modules had window to wall ratios of 74.5% and 62.1%, respectively. I did have to override the facade automation because of the 6-foot wide hallways. This broke the pattern of 20-foot, 30-foot modules and I simply inserted a single window at the end of each hallway so daylight could stream through.
For the proposal in which every apartment received a balcony, analyses showed that the inner corner of the L-shaped building received less daylight and sunlight - which was exacerbated by the stacks of balconies on top of one another. I thought that the proposal in which only about 50% of apartments had a balcony and more windows were added would have markedly more daylight and sunlight in that region. However, this was not the case. The higher window-to-wall ratio in the second proposal resulted in a 2.34% decrease in total carbon but was not more dramatic perhaps because the balconies and tall glass doors were simply replaced with windows (thus, the wall-to-window ratio only changed by roughly 20%). Thus, I chose the proposal in which every apartment had a balcony because the luxury of having access to the outdoors within the apartment unit was more important to me as a designer than the marginal benefits recevied when many of the balconies were cut out (slightly more daylight and sunlight, and slightly less carbon).