What is this tool?
The F.O.R.W.A.R.D design tool is for architects, engineers, and real estate developers who are forward-thinking and carbon-conscious and who understand the critical need for our built environment to become more flexible and long-lasting to minimize the emissions associated with demolition and new construction.
In particular, this tool aims to help designers and developers plan an office or residential building that has a higher possibility of being feasibly reused in the future as a convertible space. The tool provides designers and developers with insights to compare many high-level building space layouts to see which might provide a better opportunity for transitioning between office and residential uses in the future while trying to optimize other important factors such as gross floor area, cost of construction, and carbon emissions.
Why use this tool?
By planning for this kind of adaptability and longevity, the main building form and structure can be reused and the interior function can change from being an office building to residential building, or vice versa. In doing so, the building will contribute to significantly lowering the embodied carbon of a future building because the building is not planned to go to demolition at the end of the typical 40-50 year lifespan, and instead can be reused for another 50+ years with a different use.
How to use the tool
The Dynamo interface provides sliders for the following inputs where the min and max can be set based on the unique constraints of the project:
- Total height
- Floor to Floor height
- Bay Spacing (interval of 5)
- Width
- Length
In the Dynamo interface, there is also the opportunity to change the constant values, in this case, the construction costs per square foot / unit as well as the emissions per square foot / unit based on the specific material costs and emissions in the project.
The following output values are then presented in the Generative Design tool to be optimized:
- Daylit Area / Total Area
- Residential unit potential / Total Area
- Useful Area / Total Area
- Gross Floor Area
- Emissions
- Construction Costs
In the Generative Design interface, you are able to select if the goal is to minimize or maximize these values and then the different design options are generated based on those criteria. Then, you can filter designs and visualize results to see if there are any trends that can be used to guide design decisions.
Generative design interface - example of design options
The internal logic of the nodes to get to these output values are as follows:
- Daylit area (yellow curve)
- The curve offset amount from the perimeter was determined by the formula -2.5*(floor to floor height - sill height). This comes from the rule of thumb that the useful daylight depth into a room is about 2.5 times the height of the window.
- The sill height value can be adjusted as needed.
- Residential unit area (teal curve)
- The curve offset amount was simplified to be offset one structural bay.
- Useful area (red curve)
- This was considered to be the total area remaining once bathroom area and circulation area was subtracted.
- The formula used was [((residential square footage / 750 square feet) * 60 square feet) + (0.2 * total area)]
- 750 square feet is the average 1-bedroom apartment size in the US
- 60 square feet is the average full bathroom size
- So, dividing residential area/750 SF per apartment gives the number of bathrooms needed (assuming at least 1 bathroom per apartment). Then, that value multiplied by 60 SF gives the total area for bathrooms
- 0.2 * total area comes from the approximation of 20% of total building area being used for circulation
- This formula was then used to get the width and length of the rectangle representing the combined area of bathrooms and circulation. This rectangle also follows the width to length ratio of the larger building.
- Construction costs
- This was just the number of columns, square footage of windows and floors multiplied by their respective construction cost constant values (changeable in inputs)
- For columns, there was the assumption that the larger the bay spacing, the more costly it would be to construct because of longer spans causing deflections and chances for error.
- Emissions
- This was just the number of columns, square footage of windows and floors multiplied by their respective emissions constant values (changeable in inputs)
Video demo
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TffniLe7wkYa1YlRd9IaD7fMs0SZU_vA/view?usp=sharing