Figure - uploaded by Terri Peters
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
Access to acceptable levels of daylight are important for people’s quality of life. Multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) are known to perform poorly in terms of daylight compared to other residential building types. There are neither appropriate agreed upon metrics, nor effective methods for designing for daylight in MURBs. This paper presents...
Similar publications
Objectives, purpose, or aim
This study aims to gain insights into the implementation of theoretical knowledge on dementia-friendly design into practice to (1) identify key design criteria stimulating spatial orientation and wayfinding for seniors with dementia and (2) determine the optimal design for this purpose.
Background
Spatial orientation pr...
Citations
... Additionally, the subtractive generation procedure of discretized forms allows for initial performance analyses of alternative generated conceptual building massings [49] (Figure 6). Subtractive form finding procedures were also developed by eliminating clusters of cells, and these are determined via designer input based on the orientation and location in the buildingʹs layout, thus taking into account the internal spatial organization [50], and on the basis of performance analyses on daylight availability in the modules of each building floor [51]. Following an inverse process, the additive procedure was used to add voxels to the spatial grids of potential locations if they are inside a maximum building volume [52] and volumes as living modules to predefined schematic building massings [53]. ...
... The main variations investigated are pattern layouts and building distances and orientation. The majority of research studies also take into account urban density and building height and different typologies, e.g., block, slab and courtyard on regular grids [23,[54][55][56][57]. Several studies considered articulated buildings inside regular urban blocks [34,58,59] and neighborhoods with irregular building patterns [56,60], whereas the majority of re- Subtractive form finding procedures were also developed by eliminating clusters of cells, and these are determined via designer input based on the orientation and location in the building's layout, thus taking into account the internal spatial organization [50], and on the basis of performance analyses on daylight availability in the modules of each building floor [51]. Following an inverse process, the additive procedure was used to add voxels to the spatial grids of potential locations if they are inside a maximum building volume [52] and volumes as living modules to predefined schematic building massings [53]. ...
Researchers, architects and planners are increasingly urged to develop and apply sustainable methods and solutions to reduce the impact of the built environment on climate, adapt cities to climate change and reduce or eliminate resource depletion and building-related carbon emissions. In recent years, taking advantage of state-of-the-art computational and environmental design tools, researchers and designers are developing new digital workflows, methods and solutions to investigate climate-optimal and performative buildings and urban forms. This perspective paper analyses state-of-the-art computational methods; form generation processes; and tools, criteria and workflows that present how these are integrated into climatic form finding, allowing the improvement of building and urban environmental performances. Additionally, current challenges and future directions are presented.
... Navigating multi-variable design spaces of buildings can include negotiating between different directly conflicting design variables (Wortmann and Fischer 2020), which requires in-depth study and comparison of the Pareto fronts (Brown, Tseranidis, and Mueller 2015). To negotiate between competing metrics in whole building optimization, compound performance scores can be obtained as a combination of structural and environmental concerns (Turrin et al. 2012;Buelow 2014;Bernett, Kral, and Dogan 2021) daylighting and energy (Mcglashan et al. 2021), solar gains and view (Oswald 2021) or daylighting and building shape (Peters et al. 2019;Jayaweera, Rajapaksha, and Manthilake 2021;Shi, Fonseca, and Schlueter 2021;Konis, Gamas, and Kensek 2016). Furthermore, surrogate modeling techniques can be used for environmental building analysis, increasing parameter spaces while lowering computational costs (Westermann and Evins 2019). ...
We propose the use of solar exoskeletons, an integrated building system that combines material efficiency in structural load transfer with passive solar gain control. This offers an impactful way to respond to the UN climate goals, as the architecture and engineering disciplines face the challenge of delivering low carbon buildings. While reducing operational and embodied emissions is often considered independently, we can show how approaching them in tandem, through a novel building system, can offer significant savings. With large spans for maximum spatial flexibility and full glazing maximizing daylight, high-rise buildings are often suboptimal in terms of their material usage from steel frame construction and cooling demand from uncontrolled solar gains. We view solar exoskeletons as a sustainable pathway for future high-rise structures – combining solar gain control through external shading with a highly efficient structural system optimized for lateral loads in tall buildings. We present an automated workflow that combines parametric modeling of architectural elements and structural simulation with Radiance-based annual radiation simulations and an operational energy model in EnergyPlus. Evaluating embodied carbon and energy use intensity of midrise and tower buildings in timber and steel, we compare hundreds of iterations for a prototypical building in Phoenix, USA. Our results show that exoskeletons can lead to embodied and operational carbon reductions in the lateral load-resisting structural system of 37–80% and 24–48%, respectively, vis-à-vis conventional construction techniques. Adding photovoltaic modules to the external shading system can lead to net zero building solutions for the buildings investigated in this case study.
In generative design, it is imperative for an architect to evaluate very quickly the performance of many buildings produced. Knowing in interactive time the daylighting potential of a generated form at an early stage of its design, with a minimum of parameters, allows to quickly choose among many variants. The daylight factor computational metamodel presented here in the case of modular buildings allows to instantly compare these solutions in order to make judicious choices in dimensioning, without performing time-consuming simulations. Another challenge was to achieve realtime computation for the daylight factor without using a GPU. We have addressed this objective via an hybrid computation both based on physical and statistical modeling, and on a physical-based computation engine specifically used for the optimization of buildings composed of multiple living units. We detail the full implementation in a generative design software leading to impressive computation times of the order of one ms.
