Overview
You are more than welcome to walkthrough my design within the coordination view. I put in some special elements that I think are unique, giving an idea and showing what some of the areas can be used for. You can see it within my video and I will place a couple here.
Replace this text with your reflections on your design journey through class from a higher level and share your insights about the entire experience. What were:
- Key / Essential / Unique Design Features that you explored in your project.
I wanted my design to not only be sustainable but livable in the harsh winter environments of Chicago. As such, utilizing the brick wall was critical to retaining the heat during the winter, but during the summer, windows strategically positioned help cool the inside. The goal is to only use heat and A/C as extremely necessary. Living in sweatpants and a sweatshirt is not as bad as you may think during the winter day.
I decided to place EV solar panels on the 2 slanted roofs that absorb the most sunlight throughout the year. This will undoubtably help power the house but will more than likely be able to put energy back into the grid for others to use.
My use and placement of curtain panels is not halfhazardous. I strategically placed them almost exclusively on the Northern side of the house. This area does not get much sunlight and would not drastically heat up the house during the summer. My choice of coating and reflections of the curtian wall panels will not allow much heat transfer between it, helping keep the heat outside during the summer and inside during the winter.
Also, I have always been interested in the layout of piping and HVAC ducts, so I decided to go a little more away from the norm and restricted my ceiling use. I exposed each element to be able to visibly admire their intricasies with one another. It incorporates 1 basement air unit supplying air to the center section of the house, floors 1 and 2; 1 roof air unit supplying air to the west section as it is a quite large space; and another singular roof air unit supplying air to the east section of the house, floors 1 and 2.
My plan was to create a design that was plausible for the users to relax and enjoy their surrounding environment, whether that be the city, park, or lake. I placed some walls as a full length curtain wall to let in as much natural light as I could while providing an unobstructed view of beautiful scenery. No other view is more beautiful than the Chicago’s skyline, which can be seem effortlessly from the observation room I created; not to mention the sunset and sunrise all from the confort of your own home.
- Your Big Successes -- what worked very well and what features you're most proud to share as examples to inspire others.
The observation is one of the features I am very prpoud of. I think the goal of the owner (myself) was far exceeded with the unique design option extending from the house and being 360 degrees fully enclosed by a glass curtain wall, especially on the top for overhead star gazing if a city blackout ocurrs. You know what you want, you just need to imagine it!
One of the biggest successes I accomplished was the design of the HVAC, plumbing, and structural systems all working together and not clashing. As briefly mentioned in my video, I was able to run all of them below the floor of the above floor and have them petrude through the floor. As it is more common the this region to have the heat rise, it starts on the floor from my air vents. The plumbing line layouts needed to flow with the HVAC system. They were able to bend and move around all of them. The lines were small enough for your common, efficient house to be ran through the walls vertically to reach the above or below floor.
- Your Big Challenges -- what aspects of the project created the biggest challenges and what would you do differently (in hindsight) to avoid or overcome these challenges.
The HVAC and plumbing systems were big successes, but they were also big challenges. Because there were 3 different HVAC systems in this house to mesh with its design, the needed to be placed almost exclusively manually and then all manually adjusted with most needed additional sizing. The same goes for the plumbing which needed to be worked around the HVAC and structural systems. Hindsight to avoid this challenge int he future is to make use of the sectional view plan earlier on in the design process. I started to late and with everything else behind what I was trying to model, it had to be hidden and then unhidden to clearly work. In doing so, I eliminated any visible clashes, all of the bends, slopings, etc. were hand placed to the extent close enough to automatically connect almost all appliances.
Another challenge was in the beginning where I created one mass model. Then going to separate the floors by mass, the entire mass was cut. Some sections like the pool have a height of 20’ but the second floor of the house is at 15’ so the pool had a floor cut into it. In hindsight, to avoid this challenge is simple, create each separate building unit as a different mass so you don’t have to restart multiple times over wondering what you did wrong.
- Lessons Learned -- what sage words of advice would you share with other students who are embarking on a similar project.
Build what you’re passionate about! I wanted to create something that I could potentially physicaly create one day which would bring joy to those I love. I didn’t want to create a rudimentary exhibition center where everything can just be copied and pasted to the floor above it or something so easy that there was no unique design feature to it, like a simple tall, square building. Instead, I wanted to create a unique building to me, my backgorund and where I’m from. Was the design more complicated than most of the other students’ exhibition centers? Maybe becuase Revit didn’t always agree with me. But I can guarantee that the HVAC and plumbing systems especially required substantially more design requirement time that others and that I included some features that others weren’t able to. In the end, I was able to think creatively about elements that I would love to see implemented around my town and incorporate features that I saw as important to me such as relaxing and enjoying nature, or the most stunning city in the United States, rather than something that might be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of individuals with different personalities over numerous decades. Build what will make you happy, but build it like no one else.
Video Presentation / Tour of Your Project Features
Replace this text with a link to your Video Presentation / Tour.
- If you've saved your Video on Zoom, copy the link , then type "/web" and embed the link to it here.
- If you've saved your Video on YouTube, copy the link, then type "/vid" and embed the link to it here.