ARCH 653 Project 2

 I am Sungkyun Jung, and this is for Project 2 in ARCH 653 class, Texas A&M university.

  For this Project 2, I focused on controlling shading devices.

1. Introduction

  For project 2, shading devices will be designed for tracking the sun's movement. For tracking the sun's movement, "Solar azimuth angle" and "Solar incident angle" are necessary.

 Controlling shading devices by solar azimuth and solar incident angles can be expressed as the pictures below (Fig 1 to 4)

Figure 1. Shading devices control by "solar azimuth angle" at 9:00 A.M.

Figure 2. Shading devices control by "solar azimuth angle" at 3:00 P.M.

Figure 3. Solar incident angle

Figure 4. Shading devices control by "solar incident angle"

2. Shading Devices

  Shading devices were built by "Curtain Panel Pattern Based", and these devices have parameters such as "angles, lengths". These parameters were designed for movements of shading devices by solar azimuth and solar incident angles.

Figure 5. Shading device

 Figure 6. Shading device movement by solar azimuth angle

 Figure 7. Shading device movement by solar incident angle

3. Shading Devices Control by The Sun's Movement

 To define the sun's movement, solar azimuth and solar incident angles were calculated by a bunch of variables and equations.

Figure 8. Variables and equations for solar azimuth angle 

Figure 9. Variables and equations for solar incident angle

4. Dynamo

 The equations of solar azimuth and incident angles were applied to dynamo. Dynamo is a visual programming language for Autodesk Revit and Vasari. By using this programming language, I calculated solar azimuth and incident angles.  Finally, shading movements were defined using these calculations.

Figure 10. Result of Dynamo

Figure 11. Equations for solar azimuth angle

Figure 12. Equations for solar incident angle

Figure 13. Shading control by solar azimuth angle (South facade)

Figure 14. Shading control by solar incident angle (South facade)

5. Result

a. Shading devices' movements by time

 Solar azimuth and incident angles were defined by time, date, and latitude. Although these all variables can be changed, I assumed the variables as below in this project.

    - Location : Essen, Germany
     - Date : July 19
     - Time : 09:00 A.M., 12:00 P.M., 03:00 P.M.
     - Latitude : 51.5° N

 I changed time 09:00 A.M. to 03:00 P.M, and shading devices were working well with the time changes. Shading devices on the East, West, South facades of the building were moved for tracking the sun's position to block the direct solar radiation.

Figure 15. Shading movement at 09:00 A.M.

Figure 16. Shading movement at 12:00 P.M.

Figure 17. Shading movement at 03:00 P.M.

 b. Rendering images

 I compared shading devices with and without shading control. As a result, a large portion of direct radiation was blocked by shading devices with shading control. In the other hand, if the shading control was not used, the portion of direct radiation was increased.

Figure 18.  Shading control at 03:00 P.M. (Oct. 27th)

Figure 19.  No shading control at 03:00 P.M. (Oct. 27th)

6. Video

ARCH 653 Project 1

  I am Sungkyun Jung, and this blog is for Project 1 in ARCH 653 class, Texas A&M university.

  For this Project 1, I chose a target building for parametric modeling, and I made a virtual building model include a building mass and shading devices by Autodesk Revit.

1. Building

  The building for Project 1 is named "Q1 building" which is Thyssenkrupp Quarter in Germany.

Figure 1. Q1 Buidling exterior (Photographs: Christian Richters, Günter Wett, Michael Wolff)

  The shading devices on the facade of this building can be a parametric model, so I chose this for Project 1.

  In this project, the shading devices and operations of the devices are significant, so I am going to focus on the shading devices here.

Figure 2. Q1 Building Facade (Photographs: Christian Richters, Günter Wett, Michael Wolff)

2. Building Modeling by Autodesk Revit 2014

  A mass of building was built for this project. I needed many reference planes to shape the mass. However, it was simple and much easier than other curved buildings because my mass model was formed with cubes and cuboids only.

Figure 3. Mass of Q1 Building

  After creating the mass, the mass was simply fabricated with a roof, exterior walls, floors and curtain walls. Moreover, interior walls, windows, doors and hand rails are also made placed by the components from Revit itself or the internet sources. I didn't have a plan for parametric design on this building mass, and I didn't try to make the mass as a parametric model.

Figure 4. Mass with details

  After that, I made shading devices. To make shading devices, I used a "Curtain Panel Pattern Based.rft" template for continuous arrays of the devices. For this process, my computer resource was not enough for smooth work, so I worked separately with a building mass and the shading devices.

Figure 5. Shading device

Figure 6. Facade work with shading devices

   The mass and the facade which were worked separately became one at the end of the project.

Figure 7. Building mass + Shading devices (Facade)

3. Equations

  The shading devices of this project should track the sun's position to shade the inside of the building, so the shading devices were made to move horizontally. I used simple equations for moving shading devices, but there are no equations for tracking the sun's position yet in this Project 1. For Project 2, I am going to use the equations which are related with sun's movement.

Figure 8. Shading device with a 0 degree angle

Figure 9. Shading device with a 60 degree angle

Figure 10. Equations for shading device angle movement

4. Rendering images

   The pictures below are my rendering images for Q1 building. Although I didn't expressed all interior spaces, I did it some for this model. And I attached electric lights roughly for the night view.

Figure 11. Rendering image

Figure 12. Rendering image

Figure 13. Rendering image

5. Future work for Project 2

   As the future work mentioned above, I will focus on the shading devices' movement which can track the sun's position. The pictures below explain shading device movement of the south facade of building. This work will be conducted for Project 2. Even if I didn't draw more pictures for other directions, I should take care of not only the South face of shadings but also I should think about the East, West and North sides of the building for shading movement. Accordingly, I will make at least four similar shading devices with different movements for each side at the same time.

Figure 14. Shading devices movement at 9:00 A.M.

Figure 15. Shading devices movement at noon

Figure 16. Shading devices movement at 3:00 P.M.

6. Video