Evaluator #1: View to Burj Khalifa
Overall node logic of View Directness Dynamo File
Vector directness values remapped between 0 and 1. Then, I added an additional step to filter out the values below the halfway mark of the min and max values in order to see which views were essentially facing too far backwards to count as a good view. I added an additional factor to measure this evaluator, which was to divide the total vector view directness sum by the number of less good views. The higher this ratio, the higher the ratio of high quality views.
E.g.: below, the alternatives with a mid rotation of 0° and a top rotation of either 30° or 60° tended to have a higher ratio, meaning more high quality views. This gives a more holistic outlook of the quality of views when comparing the directness value sum, which doesn’t say as much.
Custom node logic:
1) First level down from View Directness Dynamo File
- Going one level into the custom node shows the new inputs for calculating view directness as well as for panelizing the wall surfaces. The other nodes in the image below are the ones from Module 5 that identify the input parameters for the testing loop (i.e. parameters 1, 2, and 3 that in the highest level is identified as the gross floor area, surface area, and volume).
- The element that comes out of the “start - stop” loop of changing Revit elements goes into the “Project Building” input for the Directness of View Evaluator Custom Node to get the values of the updated iterations of Revit forms.
- The outputs of the Directness of View Evaluator Custom Node is added to the output list to create one output that is “All Results Data” to go into Excel.
2) Second level down from View Directness Dynamo File
- To get the outputs of “Directness Value” and “Ratio of Good Views”, the following logic was applied:
- For Directness Value, getting the dot.product of the normal vectors from the panelized surfaces to the vector between object of interest and my building. Then, remapping and summing those values.
- For Ratio of Good Views, filtering the list of values from the remapped list to only get the ones that are less than half the max value (in this case, 1) and that is the qualifier for being a not good view in the ratio of Total Views / Less Good Views.
Evaluator #2: Solar Analysis of Cumulative Insolation
Overall node logic of Solar Analysis Dynamo File
The cumulative insolation, average, and peak values were calculated as outputs. I also added an output that calculated the sum of the perimeters per mass floor / the sum of the areas per mass floor to measure the ratio of available window real estate (the perimeter) to the floor area. This was a means to see if much of the floor area could actually get much access to the perimeter. If the perimeter to area ratio is high, that means there is more window to the relative floor area, so more of that floor should be able to access the perimeter window view compared to something like a large floor area with comparatively small perimeter.
E.g.: below, the alternatives with mid rotation of 20° tended to have the highest Perimeter to Area ratios, which might indicate these alternatives have more access to a window for any given floor plate.
Custom node logic:
1) First level down from Solar Analysis Dynamo File
- Going one level into the custom node shows the new inputs for doing the solar analysis (weather, time study, spacing, and shading elements). The other nodes in the image below are the ones from Module 5 that identify the input parameters for the testing loop (i.e. parameters 1, 2, and 3 that in the highest level is identified as the gross floor area, surface area, and volume).
- The element that comes out of the “start - stop” loop of changing Revit elements goes into the “Building Form” inputs for the Building Form Get Wall Surfaces Custom Node that is then fed into the Building Form Solar Analysis Values Node. This lets me get the values of the updated iterations of Revit forms to be applied to these custom nodes.
- Additionally, that element that comes out of the “start - stop” loop of changing Revit elements also goes into the “Building Form” input for getting the mass floor perimeter and area values. That node was a result of getting the true values from the boolean operation that compared the building element ID to the mass floor.mass ID and getting the values from the parameter name.
- The output of the Building Form Solar Analysis Values Node are added to the output list to create one output that is “All Results Data” to go into Excel. The output of the Perimeter/Area Ratio summations is a separate output node. I had to run the analysis twice: once to get the values from “All Results Data” and another time to get the values from “Perimeter/Area ratio”.
2) Second level down from Solar Analysis Dynamo File
- Going further down into the Building Form_Solar Analysis Values node, that is essentially turning the Solar Analysis Package node into this custom node with the Outputs with both the point values as well as the cumulative (total) values.
Points to Ponder
These are definitely not exhaustive evaluators for which alternative is the best. While some of the added factors help to make relative comparisons across the alternatives, there are other external factors to consider as well. For example, with the view evaluator, it would be helpful to be able to see how many of those views are blocked by other buildings between the Burj Khalifa and my building, especially for the views on the lower floors. For the solar analysis, it would be helpful to be able to understand the percentage of floor area that has good quality daylight (typically the perimeter areas 20’ from windows), or what percentage of the building is self-shading due to the geometry. Furthermore, I did not consider evaluators such as cost, embodied carbon from volume of creating that alternative, or higher percentage of “valuable” real estate - this being the upper floors, typically.
Building form
Building in relation to view object of interest, Burj Khalifa
