Working share link to your Forma project
Forma Board and Site Design are shared with the teaching team (Cesar Escalante, Glenn Katz, Juan Bautista Romaniuk, Luis Pablo Trujillo) with View access.
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
Massing
I carried the Tower + Podium scheme forward but redrew both volumes as simple rectangles aligned with Oxford St, because the skewed footprints created awkward unit walls and would complicate the Week 6 structural grid. My first redraw was too large at 116,488 SF, so I reduced the tower to 95 by 99 ft, bringing the total to 106,938 SF. Floor-to-floor heights remain 15 ft for retail and 11 ft for housing, leaving roughly 2 ft above a 9 ft ceiling for structure and ducts.
Program and Core
Retail occupies the ground floor, with the residential lobby on Center St and a resident entry on Oxford St. The podium holds limited parking on level 2 and resident amenity on level 3, with a roof terrace off level 4. The main core sits where the tower meets the podium, with two elevators, one stair, and a service shaft. A second core along Oxford St holds the second stair and another resident elevator, so the two stairs sit at opposite corners.
Units
Testing a typical floor showed that the 99 ft depth made double-loaded units too narrow and deep. Interlocking L-shaped units gave more of them wider exterior frontage. At the southeast corner, I divided the space into two studios. The current scheme has 60 units: 20% studios, 40% one-bedroom units, 30% two-bedroom units, and 10% three-bedroom units. All three-bedroom units are on the top floor, where the east units have terraces facing campus. The average unit is about 835 SF, above the 750 SF target, largely because of the deep floor plate.
Facade Studies
Option A uses punched windows with a consistent 40% window-to-wall ratio on all sides. Option B uses continuous horizontal window bands and changes the amount of glazing by orientation: 50% on the south, 45% on the west, and 35% on the north and east (about 42% overall). Less glass faces Oxford St, the noisiest edge in the Week 2 analysis. With the same balcony configuration, Option B reached 68% spatial daylight autonomy (sDA), compared with 62% for Option A. Sun hours were almost the same because the massing did not change; window type affects how daylight enters rooms, not how long the facade sees sun. Both options also scored 30 kgCO2e/ft² and an EUI of 29 kBtu/ft², because Forma's carbon model reads a single overall WWR and both sit near 40%. The facade automation treated the wall shared by the tower and podium as if it were an exterior facade, so it automatically added windows on levels 1 through 3. Because that wall is enclosed by the podium, I released the automation and deleted those windows manually.
Choice
I chose Option B and added balconies so that at least half the units have private outdoor space. After adding the balconies, sDA dropped from 68% to 63%, but it was still slightly better than Option A. The balconies also shade the bands below in summer while admitting low winter sun. I would have reconsidered Option A if it had performed noticeably better for indoor daylight.