Stage 1: Create Two New Evaluator Nodes
**Please note that for New Evaluator Node 1 and a few of the nested custom nodes within this custom node definition, you may encounter a ‘Custom Node Definition is not Loaded’ error — while this works on my own machine, opening this custom node produces an error on mew machines. However, these custom nodes are all included in the ACC folder and can be opened within Dynamo. Lavinia helped me take a look on 2025-05-16, and she confirmed that there was no simple solution for this after testing a few things out herself. New Evaluator Node 2 does not have this issue at all. Thank you for your understanding!**
New Evaluator Node 1: Calculate Total Cost and Fresh Air (CFM) Required
The intent of this first custom node is to:
- Calculate variations in the total construction costs required for the selected building element, based on different combinations of tower height and base width/depth dimensions
- Determine the amount of fresh air ventilation required (in CFM) for the building element, based on different volume options per the combinations of tower height and base width/depth
The construction cost per unit area is assumed to grow linearly from $500/sf at ground level to $1,000/sf at 750’ above ground, per the Design Brief. The input parameters were selected to ensure that the building geometry limits (total area and site development limits) comply with the Design Brief, as well.
New Evaluator Node 2: Calculate Facade-Integrated PV kWh Generation
The intent of this second custom node is to:
- Calculate the amount of electricity (in kWh) that could be generated from facade-integrated solar PV, depending on the tower height (an adjustable parameter)
A fraction of the total surface area (an adjustable parameter) is used to calculate the total area of usable facade for PV installments, after which this area is multiplied by an anticipated kWh produced/sf value for Dubai. Since Custom Node 1 focuses on total floor area and volume of the building, this custom node was developed to leverage another required output for this assignment, which is gross surface area.
Point to Ponder: Do the new evaluation metrics that you’ve designed capture the meaningful differences between the building form alternatives?
Yes, the two new evaluation metrics designed for Module 6 show direct correlations between the input parameters and the output metrics, which provide an intuitive comparison across evaluated options.
- Custom Node 1 (Calculate Total Cost and Fresh Air): As both the base width/depth and tower height increase, both the total construction cost and fresh air required increase proportionally.
- Custom Node 2 (Facade-Integrated Solar PV): There is a direct positive relationship between surface area and amount of electricity generated on the facade.
Point to Ponder: What other metrics would be useful to compute to help understand and make the case for which alternatives are truly better than others?
Additional metrics that would have been helpful to identify prioritization of alternatives include access to quality views/daylight (for projects with occupant comfort and wellbeing goals), embodied carbon calculations (for projects with low whole-life carbon goals or targeting the LEED Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction credit), or calculating the structural loads that could be supported on the roof area (for structural performance analysis).