Link to Student
Journal Entry For
Module 7 - Study Your Options
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Step 1 - Generative Design Framework
- Design Decision 1: Environmental Impact
- Design Variables
- Building Materials
- Construction Process and Material Sourcing
- Primary Energy Source(s)
- Implementation of Renewable Energy (ex. rooftop solar, geothermal)
- Evaluators
- Energy Consumption
- Construction Price
- Carbon Emissions
- Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
- Sustainable Materials vs. Construction price
- Energy Production vs Consumption
- Design Decision 2: Passive Design Strategies
- Design Variables
- Wall Glazing
- Site Orientation
- Story Height
- Window Spacing
- Evaluators
- Surface area to glazing ratio
- Sun Visibility/penetration
- Base dimensions + Building Height
- Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
- Heat loss vs. retention
- Light Penetration
- Design Decision 3: Construction
- Design Variables
- Materials
- construction time
- building access for construction team
- Evaluators
- Number of Supports vs Total Volume
- Floor height
- Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
- Construction vs operating costs
- Construction costs vs estimated net profits
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Step 2 - Generative Design Study
- I decided to run a generative study thinking about passive design strategies. While I wasn’t able to calculate any in depth metrics such as light penetration or heat retention, I looked to measure the tradeoffs like surface area vs. embodied carbon. Considering total glazing area vs surface area is another interesting relationship for considering natural lighting and ventilation.
- I set a few variables to be constrained such as the story height being 10ft and attempted to minimize embodied carbon while maximizing floor area. In this way, I might get a small sense of the buildings environmental impact while considering functionality as well. Other factors that I wasn’t able to calculate in the way I would have liked would have been glazed surface area vs. total surface area and glazed surface area vs. building height.
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Step 3 - Generative Design Study Results
- Provide a brief explanation of what’s being shown in the Scatterplot or Parallel Coordinates Graph and how the tradeoff being illustrated would impact the design decision. What would you do with this info?
My process for creating a structure that could be parametrically flexed for number of paneled sides, base dimensions, total height, number of windows, and floor height.
Above is the process I copied to account for each surface to display windows.
The tradeoff I looked at the most was surface area vs embodied carbon.