Everyday life at the Institute for advanced architecture of Catalonia
With finals coming up soon student groups are currently working on their Fabbots, to achieve their aspired research avenue. Swarm robots, weaving machines, Sand casting and molding, Solar driven fabrication techniques are a few of the types currently being developed. Students have been working and consulting with faculty Marta Malé-Alemany , Victor Viña and assistant Cesar Cruz cazares, to develop with these projects.
Students have been trying to put their ideas of internet 0 into practice.They are now working on their physical prototypes for their future computational works. With faculty Victor Viña different ideas are explored and debated with different student groups. These include; monitoring and visualizing energy consumption and generation, adaptive facades to control air flow, sun radiation or other environmental factors, automation of lightning systems and points of control, Reactive spaces which react to human presence and data visualization through physical displays. The seminar will continue through out the next day to bring about results in these works.
The starting point is having a pedestrian movement, which is the most obvious decision about a 10 000 people city/neighborhood. That means I had to set up some distance rules between the different component and programs. Based on that distances, I had the plot for my city (how big it should be according my rules) and the next question was how to keep only good orientation for all of the buildings. For that reason, I had to thing for some structure which will give me only south and no north orientation, which is the worst possible orientation in my country and in whole Europe as well.
I decided working with the specific conditions in my hometown (Varna, Bulgaria), having a sea south of my plot, same temperatures and climate conditions, etc. I was thinking how to create buildings, which can be used as a landscape inside the city, and also which can remain private as they usually are, and at the same time public spaces. The decision I made was to use the roof of the buildings as a public green spaces, which will also add more area for farming and the city will be more self sufficient in terms of food. At the same time, the roofs can be reached by a slope which can be also used as a public spaces, farming, recreation zones, playgrounds etc. The slope itself can be a shield from the cold north winds during the winter, could have no shadows during big part of the day and also they can be used as recourse for heating or cooling the building by using the constant temperature of the soil. The only question was how many degrees the slope should be? So, I decided to try with slopes between 1 and 24 degrees (the minimum angle of the sun during the winter in Varna, Bulgaria) and see what happens with the density. I know how big the city should be as a maximum to keep it pedestrian, I know how many people I need to live in that city, so now I had to find what is the angle which will form buildings big enough for 3000 apartments. The slope I finally choose is 20 degrees and it gives me a little more than 3000 apartments.
Reasons to call the city self-sufficient:
Food and goods:
1-By these slopes I`m maximizing the area for farming.
2-Having less shadows between the buildings is making the land more productive by giving plants more light.
3-Producing goods out of recycled materials
Waste and Energy:
1-The buildings have less temperature losses because of the good orientation and for the same reason, they can produce electricity from PV panels installed on top of the handrails (see the detail).
2-Gaining energy for heating/cooling from the ground behind the building
3-PV panels can be installed on all of the slopes covering the industry (facing south slopes with area of 135625m2 can produce energy from PV panels enough for 4271 apartments). This is besides of the energy given by the home installed PV panels.
4-The organic waste tanks inside each block can give the inhabitants as a result water and natural gas-methane, which can be used for boilers.
5-Non-organic waste can be taken for recycling by the old fashion way
Water:
1-Using sea water by desalination plant (reverse osmosis process) and distribution system
2-grey water will be reused for farming
Transportation:
1-pedestrian city, which means healthy people and fresh air everywhere. The streets are not more borders.
2-Optimized underground transportation systems on 2 levels-public (ULTRA RTM) and private transport (also electrical) for long distance run. Private transport can reach every building but underground.
3-Separation between trucks and private transport inside the city.
Variety of functions, programs, components inside.
This first analysis was about the energy which could be spend at each SM on different loccation.For Studio II our proposal was a self sufficient building hotel. The building that has been worked had severals changes to fit in my conception…The possibility about the room change position could be a way to the guest control by himself the natural source without spend energy.The graphic below shows some general values according with the colors.
This building have one of the proposal ,the fact of the rooms going out from the normal location.On that shot this analysis shows a morning shadows projecting on the ground .We can can see difference colors shadows depending of the how deep the rooms are been projecting from in side to out side.
The last one was an analysis that was not efficient from the perpective. The intention was not to relate some vales linking with the sun light but the way we could get to view a out side sun from inside position.The room was not at the right proportion so the shadows inside of the room occupy mostly the space .
video_assgment3
Project Description:
light seeking machines are programmed to push grounded bricks towards light cast onto the floor. (eg. the sunlight coming through a window). As the sun rises and sets the light path moves and the bricks follow, thus creating emergent patterns.
Lighting simluations via Ecotect will be used to:
1. Study how brick placement can change the daylight factor
2. Speculate and map the potential “buildable” area
3. Help calibrate the sensitivity of the machine’s light sensors (eg. only drive towards x range in lumens)
Daylight Factor – Analysis Grid:
This study shows how will the number of bricks, it’s placement and material effect the daylight factor of a space?
Using Tedngai’s “Ecotect Analysis Grid 2 Rhino” script, DF analysis data was converted to a surface as a means of 3D mapping “buildable“ area. The surface peaks and valleys represent high and low lumen levels, and or the absence or prsence of a brick.
Sample Ecotect Data:
1.2768, 1.28509, 1.28971, 2.2466, 3.2209, 6.85491, 13.5377, 16.4381, 17.3614, 19.4248, 19.1552, 17.8918, 17.594, 14.5499, 6.93391, 2.14391, 2.20469, 1.53283, 1.28647, 1.27194, 2.30118, 2.73324, 2.74547, 3.41999, 6.16329, 8.74706, 12.8397, 15.7009, 16.3073, 16.8703, 17.0259, 16.4576, 14.7066, 12.666, 8.22195, 4.83835, 2.97473, 2.02677, 2.40924, 2.30426, 2.0747, 2.02002, 2.69397, 3.96526, 5.18788, 7.06709, 9.70132, 11.1143, 12.1092, 13.5396, 11.7393, 12.2442, 11.5015, 9.74278, 6.9234, 4.75648, 3.81966, 3.62953, 2.42884, 2.75764, 1.83838, 1.94818, 2.2208, 3.75749, 4.04008, 5.90577, 7.41432, 8.33884, 9.43079, 9.25285, 9.03335, 8.62411, 8.31394, 7.14627, 5.73228, 3.91285, 3.94581, 3.76494, 2.97021, 2.5216, 1.89475, 2.14126, 3.055, 3.08061, 2.89965, 4.04766, 5.57898, 6.80126, 6.36056, 6.40134, 6.67575, 7.15078, 5.91055, 5.69576, 4.27529, 3.05747, 2.99106, 3.09462, 2.20309, 2.05633,
1.85562, 2.03552, 3.10559, 2.49052, 3.13657, 3.41528, 5.54401, 5.92736, 6.36552, 5.90912, 5.88865, 6.22181, 6.2505, 5.57344, 4.11307, 3.71256, 3.17819, 2.73857, 1.96613, 3.06346, 2.01836, 2.02988, 2.26621, 2.35518, 3.38627, 3.344, 4.12191, 3.99017, 4.26249, 4.88275, 4.80359, 4.77441, 4.54185, 4.21487, 3.04055, 3.04184, 2.35258, 2.26329, 1.94979, 1.9444, 1.90657, 2.31015, 2.42426, 2.38327, 2.82048, 2.84921, 3.04882, 3.74024, 3.54746, 4.0733, 3.77888, 3.4448, 3.30655, 3.87451, 3.02156, 2.93381, 3.04403, 2.37739, 2.16169, 1.75126, 1.79731, 2.16931, 2.24606, 2.35343, 2.81032, 2.36299, 3.24828, 3.10861, 3.5611, 3.06863, 3.19607, 3.57656, 3.15272, 3.18106, 2.37691, 2.42856, 2.24275, 1.9301, 2.16177, 1.62165, 2.13292, 1.90805, 1.95094, 2.0845, 2.36087, 2.33945, 2.7065, 2.82244, 2.27793, 2.52459, 2.57047, 3.29654, 2.67105, 2.57165, 2.75952, 2.37649, 1.95443, 1.97441, 1.92028, 1.77821,
1.41463, 1.58291, 2.00339, 2.00491, 2.26463, 1.8814, 2.3462, 2.30018, 2.37029, 2.60315, 2.60932, 2.44595, 2.74773, 2.57349, 2.31259, 2.23082, 2.06018, 2.02529, 1.9747, 1.72442, 1.6252, 1.88378, 1.61556, 2.26583, 1.98621, 2.32065, 2.27648, 2.52604, 2.45433, 2.76427, 2.46203, 2.74566, 3.12017, 3.00515, 2.29023, 1.89043, 1.71414, 1.86376, 1.57139, 1.4298, 1.56866, 1.52367, 1.86996, 1.47389, 2.20521, 1.97464, 2.366, 0, 2.96831, 0, 0, 3.04562, 0, 0, 2.24489, 1.906, 1.79433, 1.72464, 1.61449, 1.58028, 1.59958, 1.44488, 1.46463, 1.82442, 1.55283, 1.95514, 2.27154, 2.33628, 2.42075, 2.46626, 0, 2.10981, 1.96945, 2.27968, 2.1647, 1.9145, 1.54681, 1.75096, 1.45142, 1.45571, 1.37694, 1.41833, 1.47806, 1.76558, 1.86742, 1.41017, 2.28152, 1.92666, 0, 2.4009, 2.37541, 0, 1.97827, 1.96118, 1.95548, 1.57764, 1.83329, 1.42455, 1.40263, 1.56174, 1.50026, 1.39591, 1.39619, 1.53413, 1.49531, 1.43636, 1.8753, 1.84723, 2.19027, 1.90457, 0, 1.83741, 1.63231, 1.77766, 1.56946, 1.5087, 1.50814, 1.50956, 1.46052, 1.57554,
Rhinoscript to Convert Ecotect Data:
Option Explicit
'Script written by Ted Ngai Apr 2008
'This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
'http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
Call ReadPts()
Sub ReadPts()
Dim strFilter, strFileName
strFilter = "Text File (*.txt)|*.txt|All Files (*.*)|*.*||"
strFileName = Rhino.OpenFileName("Open Point File", strFilter)
If IsNull(strFileName) Then Exit Sub
Dim objFSO, objFile, objFileCC
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
On Error Resume Next
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, 1)
Set objFileCC = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, 1)
If Err Then
MsgBox Err.Description
Exit Sub
End If
'Read all the numbers into an array
Dim txt, a
txt = objFile.ReadAll
a = Split(txt,",")
If Not IsArray(a) Then Exit Sub
'Rhino.Print Ubound(a)
'Rhino.Print a(0)
'Check for number of columns
Dim col, row, b
row = 1
b = objFileCC.ReadLine
col = Split(b,",")
'Check for number of rows
Do While objFileCC.AtEndOfStream <> True
objFileCC.SkipLine
row = row+1
Loop
Rhino.Print "U : " & Ubound(col)
Rhino.Print "V : " & row
'create points
Dim u,v, x, y, z, n,nMax, arrPoints()
'Find max value
Dim aMax, aTemp, k
ReDim aTemp(row*Ubound(col)-1)
k = 0
For v = 1 To row
For u = 1 To Ubound(col)
aTemp(k) = CDbl(a(k))
k = k+1
Next
Next
aMax = Rhino.SortNumbers(aTemp, False)
'assign value to x,y,z
n = 0
nMax = row*Ubound(col)
ReDim arrPoints(nMax-1)
'Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(False)
For v = 1 To row
For u = 1 To Ubound(col)
'Scale the u v points or apply mathematical other functions to transform the points
x=10*u
y=10*v
z=(CDbl(a(n))/aMax(0)*50)-55
arrPoints(n) = array(x,y,z)
n = n+1
Next
Next
Dim UVcount(1)
UVcount(0) = Ubound(col)
UVcount(1) = row
If Ubound(col) > 1 And row > 1 Then
Rhino.AddsrfPtGrid UVcount,arrPoints
Else
Rhino.Print "Cannot make surface"
End If
'Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(True)
objFile.Close
Set objFile = Nothing
Set objFSO = Nothing
End Sub
Once in Rhino, the infomation was altered via the mesh patch command in order to make a more legible surface
Results from Data:
Further Alterations:
The data currently shows the presence of bricks as valleys and the absence of bricks as peaks. Further alterations to the script itself or to the surface in Rhino in order to reverse the values. By doing so, this information can simulate what the brick composition may look like.
