This seminar aims to empower students with the theoretical background and the technical expertise to inform architectural design in an urban case study site using environmental simulations.
The undoubtedly significant contribution of buildings’ performance to the devastating effects of climate change has in the past decades driven research and development efforts in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. To enable the shift towards more performance-aware design, environmental simulation tools have become more readily available through the constant development of new interfaces that incorporate state of the art simulation engines in mainstream CAD frameworks. Architects and urban designers have at their disposal today, as part of their design workflows, a wide range of analytical tools that allow them to assess the environmental performance of their designs, in order to make informed and sustainable design decisions. Further to the incorporation of simulation tools the recent developments in optimization and generative design methods are fundamentally changing the computational design workflow and enable the exploration of vast design spaces, unconceivable by manual processes.
This seminar aims to empower students with the theoretical background and the technical expertise to inform architectural design in an urban case study site using environmental simulations. Either on empty unused land plots or the rehabilitation of existing infrastructures, the projects will have synergy with the rest of the digital tools seminars, allowing the students to apply the knowledge received into a practical and speculative design proposal. This hands-on investigation will enable students to apply evidence-based solutions to complex environmental design problems using state-of-the art software and analytical techniques.
At course completion the student will:
The project is located in Istanbul. It is the city I dream to develop design projects in the near future. I used this chance to practice the basics of an environmentally informed design in a city where the built environment is dense, the buildings always in very close proximity and the topology is hilly. It … Read more
The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is “Bwh”. (Tropical and Subtropical Desert Climate). The average temperature for the year in Abu Dhabi is 81.0°F (27.2°C). The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of 95.0°F (35°C). In Abu Dhabi, the summers are long, sweltering, oppressive, arid, and partly cloudy and the winters … Read more
This blog post summarizes what I learned during the environmental analysis seminar. The relation between climate and architecture, especially in Singapore, the city where I live, and I used it for my case studio. My first take was to learn of the existence of the Köppen Climate Classification, in which Singapore falls into the category … Read more
The climate analysis of Stockholm, Sweden leads to the optimization of a new building with twisting floors for human comfort and solar gain.
S1_Environmental Analysis The theme of the design is to provide a comfort and pleasant place coping with the hot and damp weather – A Cooling Paradise Comfort Data suggest that ventilation and cooling down are the keys to tackle problems, the later is directly used for informing retail strategies Conclusion: Tropical climate in Philippines is … Read more
Taking this city as case study, I implemented multiple climatic analysis tools in combination with a sensible assessment of results in order to achieve the best environmental performance of the site. As first approach, diagrams of climate factors were collected to compare them to west Europe conditions. Damascus {33°30’42.6″N 36°18’18.7″E} Köppen-Geiger: cool arid climate (BWk)Weather last … Read more
What do you get if you combine an umbrella with a funnel? A Fumbrella of course! Combining the idea of using an umbrella coupled with a water collecting funnel to create a Fumbrella. This new urban infrastructure is parametric in that it opens and closes according to both solar radiation and rainfall. It is well … Read more
LOCATION : BENGALURU, INDIAKOPPEAN CLIMATE : Aw (TROPICAL WET & DRY CLIMATE) CLIMATE ANALYSIS Bengaluru has become hotter than it used to be 2 decades ago. Now we see temperature reaching above 40*c. The temperature starts getting hotter from March and reaches its peak in mid April and once the SW monsoon hits the coast … Read more
