Plumbing System Elements
The main goal of the plumbing system I designed was to supply and return water from three floors of stacked restrooms and a kitchen sink in the cafe. In the restrooms this consists of two toilets and a urinal in the men’s rooms, three toilets in the women’s room, and two sinks in each restroom. The kitchen contained one sink, to be used in the cafe food preparation room. A grey water collection system was also incorporated into the design. While using a grey water collection system was not an original design goal of mine, it is a clear push towards sustainable water use. The specific piping systems will be described and can be seen below.
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Plumbing Systems
The plumbing system that I designed consisted of:
- Domestic hot water (1” pipes) - modelled in red
- Domestic cold water (1” pipes) - modelled in dark blue
- Sanitary (4” pipes with 1/4” per 12” slope) - modelled in green
- Grey water collection (4” 4” pipes with 1/4” per 12” slope) - modelled in light blue
- Grey water supply (1” pipes) - modelled in light blue
The system consists of one main branch of risers that connects three floors of restrooms through branches. There are five systems in total, each of which connect to the plumbing fixtures. Each floor contains hot and cold domestic water going to the sinks. The sinks are collected by the grey water collection. Then, the grey water would be filtered and returned as supply for the toilets and urinals. From here, the waste is collected from the urinals and toilets through sanitary pipes. There was a single branch of domestic cold water running to the sink in the kitchen and a grey water collection pipe. The plan views can be seen below:
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Design Challenges
Overall, while the plumbing system is fairly straightforward and stackable floor-by-floor, there were some design challenges that had to be overcome:
- Avoiding spatial conflicts between the 5 risers and 5 branches
- Implementing a back-to-back toilet and sink design required some alterations
- Creating the supply and collection connections for the grey water collection system
- Getting pipes at different levels to connect created some challenges like the one in light blue above, where the elbows could not fit within the constraints.
Additional Work: Fire Sprinkler System
In addition I modelled the fire sprinkler system for the first floor. I had difficulty choosing the layout for a large building that was logical. It took some manual rework and that’s why I only modelled the first floor. Nonetheless, the automatic connection is definitely a helpful tool. I decided to use one main riser and place sprinkler heads every 12ft for the most part. I placed sprinkler pipes at 10ft above the level, and the heads at 9ft above. This would likely create clashes with the HVAC system, but all major structural elements and stairs/elevators were avoided. See the sample sprinkler layout below:
