Design Journal Entry - Module 12 Wrap Up

Journal Entry For

Module 12 - Sharing Your Project

Overview

In my design goals from the beginning of the project, I was drawn to the philosophy of biomorphism whereby the design of the building is inspired by nature. To do that, I incorporated a green roof and made space for palm trees on the outside deck on the second floor. Although my modeling skills were rather rudimentary, the idea is to have a living roof that insulates and protects the interior, similar to how rolling hills may have an entire ecosystem that lies underneath the surface

Coming from a construction background, something that was always on my mind was that of constructability. I wanted a design that not only served the users, but was also practical to build. Proper spacing, familiar materials, and plenty of horizontal & vertical clearance between systems and components of my building are some key design features found in my building

Another key feature of my building was design for adaptive reuse. You will find that much of the spaces in my building can be repurposed or utilized for functions other than the one it is currently assigned to. For example, the conference room and education rooms both have similar dimensions are are often adjacent to one another. If the need for a conference room is no longer present, it can be repurposed into an education room, and vice-versa, or another exhibit space. The exhibit spaces themselves are open and expansive, rather than confined by walls, so that the exhibition center operators can allow for rotating exhibits. If partitions are required, then a temporary one can be brought in. The possibilities are endless with my current design and that is to ensure that this building lasts far into the future.

Due to my choice of a building mass model, I was able to develop a design that did not require any active cooling and takes advantage of the local wind direction for natural ventilation. There is a partition in the north and south portions of my building, allowing for air to flow through. Furthermore, when analyzing the project in Energy Insight, I found that solar pv generation has ample use for my building, greatly reducing the energy demand on the grid by the building itself.

Although I initially was a bit disappointed in my building mass model design for its simplicity, I found in later modules that it worked greatly in my favor. Having bathrooms in the same location on the first and second floor reduced the need for additional fittings when it came to the plumbing systems and the box-like nature of the building made it easier to place columns in the locations where I needed them. Fluid, non-uniform designs are nice, but there are great benefits to having consistent aspects of a building design.

I am proud that despite the 30k to 35k sqft gross requirement, I was still able to incorporate a theater, a meditation room, and two outdoor patios into my building design, which are additions on top of the required spaces for this exhibition center.

In one module, we assessed how much sq ft each of our desired spaces would require and I thought I had estimated fairly well, but when it came to designing, I realized it was rather small actually. Figuring out how to make best use of every available inch of each space, including floor to ceiling, was quite a challenge. Comprises had to be made, whether it be aesthetics (i.e. seeing the structural system), or in the building itself (i.e. repositioning windows).

Similar to space, another big challenge was ensuring that each system component worked in harmony, versus conflict, with each other. The HVAC module was the most challenging out of all of them, because I needed to ensure the supply ducts didn’t cross the return ducts, but also that neither of them crossed the structural beams, and that they didn’t block any views to outdoor spaces. This is just one example, but it speaks to the larger challenge of having all the systems of a building exist cooperatively.

Lastly, and this might have been the most challenging aspect, Revit. I did not take 220A, so all my knowledge of Revit was via this class. Glenn provided so much help and having access to 220A videos were awesome too, but I felt like a lot of my time was still figuring out how to use Revit versus actually designing my building. Issues such as being unable to get the HVAC system loads report to generate; not knowing how to work with voids during building mass modeling; and having walls go up to the next floor were a few Revit-specific challenges that made certain modules more difficult than others.

When designing a building, a lot of it is trial and error. You design something, see if it works, and if it conflicts with a future system, you try again. Although this normally is ok, you could save a lot of time and effort by workshopping your designs on paper or some other virtual whiteboard. It’s much easier to draw and erase, then it is to put up an entire structural system, only to tear it down once you realize that it doesn’t work well with your HVAC. Or, you decide to keep a subpar design because the amount of rework isn’t worth it. I highly recommend to future building system designers to work outside of Revit first, make some rudimentary elevation views or whatnot, then start putting your design ideas into Revit.

If we all had unlimited time, I imagine all of our designs would be amazing. But the truth of the matter is, we don’t, and therefore, it’s important to start early. Simple items such as a green wall, or a sloped roof, may seem as simple as clicking a few buttons, but it may actually require adjusting several components of your building. Starting early also gives you the freedom to be creative and try out different design ideas too, versus simply doing the bare minimum to complete the module requirements. Had I started earlier with each module, I could have implemented a greywater system, or imported topography too, but alas, it’s easy for me to think “oh yeah, this won’t take too long,” only for it to take too long.

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