Design Journal Entry - Module 4

Visualizing Site using Google Earth

The project will be located at Stanford Dish, which is a rural, open area.

• Create and share a Psychometric chart for your project location.

The weather data of the project site (Climate Zone 4) is shown below.

The psychrometric chart shows that passive design contributes much of the comfort hours. Internal heat gain plays an important role in energy saving.

• Test 2 different alternative conceptual building forms using:
• The two conceptual forms are simplified and designed to show welcoming for visitors to the exhibition center. The rectangular shape is faced toward Stanford Campus while the circular shape is expected to mix into the dish scenario properly.
• The gross floor area of the two alternatives are shown as mass floor area in Revit: 32429.81 sqft and 30787.96 sqft respectively.
• Insight analysis to predict the energy performance each of the forms
• Baseline Scenario:



• Model comparison:











The insight analysis results show that the two alternatives perform similarly in terms of (EUI) in the baseline scenario, which are both slightly higher than ASHRAE 90.1 and much higher than ARCHITECTURE 2030. Further improvements are needed to achieve the energy performance goal.

• Solar insolation analysis to predict the solar radiation on the surfaces of the forms



The solar analysis results show the two conceptual alternative perform almost the same in terms of the solar isolation.

I would proceed with the rectangular one given two alternatives have similar performances in above analysis. I think there should be more room for me to improve the aesthetics and sustainable design of the rectangular one.

• Given the conceptual form that you’ll be carrying forward, use Insight to determine the most important factors and their values that could deliver these performance thresholds:
• Architecture 2030


In the ARCHITECTURE 2030 scenario, the model meets the goal.

Then, to explore the influence of the factors, change one factor at each time.

The results are tabulated below.

ARCHITECTURE 2030	Window-wall ratio	window shades - south	window glass - south
17.0	19.2-16.5	17.1 -17.0	17.2 - 17.0
	lighting efficiency	daylighting & occupancy controls	plug load efficiency
	25.1 - 15.3	17.7 - 17.0	26.6 - 15.7
	HVAC	Operating Schedule	PV - Panel Efficiency
	21.7 - 17.7	35.9 - 16.9	17.0
	PV - Payback Limit	PV - Surface Coverage
	17.0	17.0

From my exploration, I found the most important factors are: operating schedule, plug load efficiency, and lighting efficiency. Based on the building type, it’s workable to improve lighting efficiency.

• Net Zero (if possible) or the best performance reasonably achievable

Then I did the same exploration in Net Zero scenario.

From the results, the most important factors are quite different in Net Zero: although operating schedule is still leading, PV surface coverage becomes one of the most influential factors, following by lighting efficiency and PV Payback limit. Overall, there are more spaces for improvement in Net Zero scenario.