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Overview
This parametric building design allows the designer to define three main criteria and the remaining dimensions driving the building’s form will adjust automatically in relation to the designer’s inputs. The three criteria that the designer needs to define are Top Height, Mid Rotation, and Base Radius. for the purpose of the assignment, Top Height was maintained constant while Mid Rotation and Base Radius were flexed parametrically. To ensure that the building form stays withing the site development limits (300’ x 450’ in plan view), and the allowable building height (750’) the range of values that the designer can use for the Base Radius and the Top Height, respectively, were constrained. By running the Dynamo graph, the designer will be presented with a summary table exported to Excel showing the resulting Gross Floor Area, Gross Surface Area, and Gross Volume for each of the building form iterations.
This building form was inspired by the template provided named “Template - Twisting Tower - 3 Profiles” and it’s defining profiles were modified in Revit. All three defining profiles were replaced by different geometries and the dimensions of these were linked to each other.
Below, you will find a more detailed description of the Dynamo graph used to create this. This post does not discuss the graph used to complete part 1 of the assignment (for 2 units) since part 2 (discussed here) covers the same topics and more. The files corresponding to part 1 can be found in the ACC folder.
Discussion of Part 2 Solution
Overall Dynamo Graph
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Establishing Parameters to Test and to Report
The two flexed parameters were Base Radius and Mid Rotation. The parameters to report were also established.
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Using the two input parameters to flex, a list of combinations of the two parameters is created so that each is evaluated by a custom node that takes in the combinations of two input parameters and outputs results for three different parameters. This custom node was modified for this particular Dynamo graph. In a separate block, the designer can establish the building height using a slider.
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Then, the graph creates individual lists for each of the desired outputs and establishes new lists to format the data that will be exported to an Excel file.
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Lastly, the graph exports the desired data to Excel, including column headers and assigns sequential numbering for each iteration.
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In the end, the designer is presented with a summary table like the one below, allowing for easy decision-making and comparison between different design options.
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