Alexis Laskowski

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Step 1 - Generative Design Framework

  • Optimizing the shape of a 3-part building

Decide the optimal design of a 3-part building that uses three different shapes based on certain criteria (listed below).

  • Design Variables
    • Building heights
    • Building Shapes
  • Evaluators
    • Total Costs
    • Floor Area
    • Length of Time to Build
  • Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
    • Total Cost vs. Floor Area
    • Total Cost vs. Length of Time to build
  • Designing a Green Roof:

How to design a green roof that reduces overall cost savings of the building and lowers the embodied carbon.

  • Design Variables
    • Surface Area of the Roof
    • Shape of the Roof
    • Climate
    • Height of the Building
    • Layout of the Green Roof (placement of objects)
  • Evaluators
    • Total Costs
    • Cost Savings
    • Water Usage
    • Embodied Carbon
  • Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
    • Total Cost vs. Embodied Carbon
    • Cost Savings vs. Total Cost
  • Ventilation of a Building

To look at the ventilation of the building by maximizing daylight, solar energy received but minimizing the cost.

  • Design Variables
    • Climate
    • Building Height
    • Building Volume
    • Number/Size of Windows
  • Evaluators
    • Energy consumption of the building
    • Building Cost
    • Solar Energy Received/Amount of Daylight
    • Building Height to Volume Ratio
  • Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
    • Building cost vs. Any/All evaluators
    • Energy Consumption vs. Amount of daylight
  • Building a Sustainable (environmental & social) Building

Design and build a structure that is sustainable, both environmentally and socially. This would not be able to be modeled in dynamo, due to the materials being sourced as a variable, unless a location factor was created. To be socially sustainable, the source location is a factor.

  • Design Variables
    • Source of materials
    • Type of material
    • Amount of material
  • Evaluators
    • Embodied Carbon
    • Total Cost
  • Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
    • Total cost vs. embodied carbon
    • Total cost vs. Operating Costs
    • Total Cost vs. Social Material Sustainability Factor

Step 2 - Generative Design Study

  • A more detailed description of the design decision from Step 2 that you decided to run a Generative Design Study with.
  • Use the Generative Design Framework structure to explain how you’ve set up your Generative Design Study to keep it consistent.

I decided to explore the design for a 3-part building. I used two boxes and a cylinder to make the structure. The cylinder connected both cube forms. The goal was to explore different combinations of the buildings. This included the height and placements of the three forms. The goal was to maximize the floor area, while minimizing the heat loss, embodied carbon and cost of the building.

The generative design takes inputs that are constant and variable. The variable inputs for this design are Box 1 Height, Box 2 Y Position, Cylinder Height and Cylinder Position X.

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I created outputs to analyze. I decided on heat loss, embodied carbon, cost, and the floor area. Floor area is directly correlated to the code created, based on the floors created. I stated that each floor is 10ft. Cost is a function of the floor area. I researched and stated the cost per sqft of a reinforced concrete building is $150. The embodied carbon is a function of the volume. I research the embodied carbon coefficient for reinforced concrete and it is 0.198kgCO2e/kg of conc and the factor to go from CF to kg of concrete is 66.15kg per CF. The heat loss is a function of the surface area/volume. The surface area directly relates to the number of windows. We want a larger number of windows, so it is maximized. We want to minimize the cost, embodied carbon, and heat loss and surface area.

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Step 3 - Generative Design Study Results

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This graph shows that as the Surface area/windows increases so does the costs. I believe this makes sense, because the windows can be expensive to install. It does show there is greater heat loss the as the surface area decreases. this is because the heat loss is the surface area/volume. embodied carbon is a function of the floor area. So there is more embodied carbon as the floor area increases.

With this information we can prioritize the characteristics we want for the building design. From there we can decipher the overall design benefits of this layout from all of the designs.

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This is the entire code.

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