Sun: The Designer | CAD

0 – Introduction

The project was developed alongside the studio work. This semester’s studio was about designing a housing block in Vimperk. Upon doing a climate analysis on the town with Grasshopper – Ladybug, one big discovery was made: cloudy days made the temperature feel 15-20°C lower. In general the town is on the colder side but the fact that it’s surrounded by the mountains limits the sunlight even more.

So the drastic difference in temperature sparked an idea of sunlight being the main actor in the designing process. It would mean that after defining some project requirements the building would have to follow the sun to gain as much of the light as possible. There were two main requirements:

Multiple Volumes
Circulation in the Middle

1 – Methodology

With the project requirements described now it was time to define the parameters which affect the direct sunlight hours cast on the building.

These variables change the duration of light cast on the facades of the building blocks. Finding the perfect combination of parameters is a challenge but that’s where Grasshopper and Galapagos come into play.

1.1 – Weather Analysis-Ladybug

First thing to do is get the direct sun hours from Ladybug. To achieve that a correct EPW file is needed which needed adjustment to be closer to the Vimperk’s real data.

1.2 – 2D Preparation

Before working on volumes everything should be prepared as 2D footprints. This snippet defines the first UV coordinates of the first block and arrays them linearly, then leaves only the ones that are inside the plotlines.

1.3.1 – Permutations

Just extruding the 2D rectangles would not be enough. Each volume would shade the others but there has to be a perfect combination of floors where the sunlight duration is maximum. This snippet takes entered floor number possibilities and generates all possible combinations.