Overview

Replace this text with your reflections on your design journey through class from a higher level and share your insights about the entire experience. What were:

Key / Essential / Unique Design Features that you explored in your project.

Circular geometry: Choosing to model a circular building came with it’s fair set of warnings, but I still went through it. There is a sense of continuity that I find in circular buildings that not only caters to it’s aesthetic but also a larger design sense and a metaphor for something that has no end. I would like my Sustainable Built Environment Center and Museum to be timeless.

The large number of windows: Initially I wanted a curved glass curtain that would have a 40% WWR continuously around, but implementing other features was getting increasingly difficult with that, so I decided to have a wall but with many large windows. I customised the length of my windows and used triple awning windows. I wasn’t able to run a daylight analysis because my software kept glitching (as performed with the TAs as well) and it never allowed me to show extensions for insight daylight potential analysis.

The brick walls: Very important feature to keep the building cool. I also designed a thicker air layer inside to improve the insulation. Insulation basically protects the thermal environment within the space from external differences. In the hot and humid climate (Climate Zone 2A) of Sao Paulo, keeping the cool air within will work wonders for reducing the cooling load, and minimizing heat gain.

Green roof: I also modeled a green roof. While visitors don’t have access to this, it was primarily to combat urban heat island effect in the city. Towards the end I did try making it accessible to people, but was unable to model the structural system on the third floor to let me create unobstructed stairs to the top. I want my visitors to hang around and get fresh air and great views.

Your Big Successes

The structural system of the radial geometry: I modeled the structure of my geometry to be radially outward. The grid was an inner circle and an outer circle, with radially outward lines, the result is attached below.

The HVAC system geometry: Owing to the circular geometry, I modeled the HVAC system supply ducts to go around the outer periphery, and return ducts to run along the inner periphery. I feel like this worked very well with regards to the location of the mechanical room and for the circular geometry

Wooden Mullions on the interior: My proclivity towards nature made me want to integrate elements of nature and the wooden mullions on the inside turned out very well.

Sun shades: I put sun shades on every window with a calculated length on the inside and the outside. These sun shades prevent heat gain inside the building space and give a controlled daylighting within the space.

Your Big Challenges

The Circular Geometry: Being inexperienced in Circular Geometry buildings simply caused me to not see struggles coming. I feel like if I would have seen the systems of other circular geometries, then I would have been better equipped to model all systems of my building well. Answers to how to shape rooms, how to make passages and how to have a general layout in a circular geometry with a central open atrium would have been helpful to look for answers to, or finding them from TAs or professor.

New to the software: I was doing revit the first time and while the initial videos helped, just knowing certain features and keyboard shortcuts towards the end helped a lot. For the most part I was struggling to find where to go to execute a command and that was exhausting. Only experience can help in this. I also wanted to do a few architecturally cool things but couldn’t because of falling short on time. I was amazed every time a TA did something and thought “Oh wow, we can even do this?”

Keeping track of rooms: I had accidentally modeled a restroom at a location where the mechanical room was planned. I had named the rooms only in one project model so maybe they didn’t transfer over while I was doing the plumbing.

Concrete structure: I didn’t use a wooden structure as envisioned because it wasn’t popular in that region, or I couldn’t find projects that did that. I figured that going with concrete would be better, but under all circumstances I prioritize a mass timber structure over anything else.

Lessons Learned -- what sage words of advice would you share with other students who are embarking on a similar project.

This is your creation and you can do anything you want with it
Pull out blueprints from other similar buildings and learn from them, and potentially directly implement their systems’ style
Take baby steps and size your step according to yourself, be patient with yourself and keep moving forward
Ask questions if you don’t know how to do something — don’t spend endless hours trying to figure it out yourself
Spend some more time visualizing the design, and possibly putting it on paper — so that modelling it becomes easier on revit