Design Journal Entry - Module 4

Your Design Journal entries for this module should highlight:

• the design alternatives that you modeled and tested
• the results of the analyses and how they influenced your thinking about how to move forward

Use text , images, web links, movies... Whatever media works best to express your ideas!

Images of Your 3 Design Proposals

Paste screenshots of your 3 proposed building forms here...

Side-By-Side Comparisons of Your Analysis Results

Paste at least 2 screenshots showing the side-by-side comparisons of the analysis results for your 3 proposed building forms here…

Your Recommendation for the “Best” Design Option

Create a few paragraphs outlining a brief explanation of why you chose this design option as the “best” after comparing your analyses of the proposals. Explain your reasoning and the tradeoffs that influenced your decision about which design option to move forward with.

Design Inspiration:

From the very beginning, a core goal of mine is to make my design as passive as possible. South facing windows and solar orientation are key elements in my design goals. At first, I was planning on designing in Sao Paulo, however, as it is in the Southern Hemisphere, the solar windows would be north facing and there was a large building directly in front of the northern edge of the site. I turned instead to the NYC site where I would have access to plentiful, unblocked south facing sun.

Another core design principle/goal are sustainable roofs. Part of the building design idea is to make the roofs exhibitions of sustainability → I want to show different examples like green roofs, cool roofs, and solar roofs. Thus, the idea of “stepping stones” came to me. In this concept, the building has varying levels, like stairs, to make a multiple of usable roofs.

When I began designing, I also realized I wanted an interior garden/courtyard where the building could open up to → connecting it further to nature. This interior courtyard would also allow for more touch points for the sun and be a focal point for gathering of the users.

The combination of these goals and ideas led to the designs. From the first proposal to the last, each become more complicated with the “stones”. The second proposal adds more steps while the third adds a more natural curve. From an aesthetic standpoint, I enjoy the third proposal the best. However, it did not perform as well on the analyses. The meshed cubes created many interior corners that experienced dark daylighting, dark solar spaces, and cooler microclimates. These corners would not be pleasant for the users and the passive design. They would also consume constructibility time. The other proposals had flat edges and thus experienced more sun. When comparing the first and second proposal, the second proposal allows for more light to shine into the courtyard. It is also more aesthetically pleasing and more relatable to nature which is something I wanted in my initial design goals.

My recommendation for best design option:

Option 2