Optimal Shades - [DvsI] 2nd Parametric Design and Digital Fabrication Workshop @ the Architecture Department [ARC], University of Nicosia

Team: Maria Chrysanthou, Antonia Loizou, Stavros Voskaris
Digital Tools: Grasshopper, DIVA

The aim of this project was to develop an intelligent, low tech, exterior shading skin for a hypothetical building that could regulate the annual solar radiation on its facades. The team approached the problem by subdividing the façades of the building into smaller panels and calculating the amount of annual solar radiation on each panel. The group came up with a parametric definition that relates the radiation values on each panel of the façade with the number and size of generated louvers per panel. To facilitate construction, the results were reduced to five categories per facade allowing modularization. Consequently, the East and West facades consisted from panels comprising 1-5 louvers, whereas the south facade consisted from panels comprising 5-9 louvers. As a final step the team calculated the new annual solar radiation on the shaded façades to verify their design strategy.

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Comment by djordje on October 8, 2012 at 10:12am: Thank you for the reply Michail.

Yes I am aware that in the "full-package" scenario even light requirements should be involved in calculation.
But I though that maybe, as a first step in improving this definition, light should be neglected. And that criteria for annual irradiation of each panel should be incorporated.
Like you said, Galapagos would be a pretty good way of doing that.

But again I was interested in the criteria. I though it was incorporated into definition, so that you could "read" if for me.
I was not interested in the definition itself.

Thank you.

Comment by Mgeorgio on October 8, 2012 at 9:50am: Hi Djordje, thanks for your comment,

Actualy what you mention is very very interesting... and it could open up a whole new discussion and research on what is actually the annual irradiation needs of a building. For the above example we haven't set any critiria/requirements as it was out of the scope of the workshop... but I believe that this is something that could be incorporated in the definition. We can measure what we get after shading and subtract it from the initial irradiation measures. Then it should be a genetic algorithm... (ie galapagos) to propose achieve numbers and sizes of louvers to meet based on our requirements. But i guess the real question is not the definition but the actual determination of those critiria. Because in a real case scenario irradiation is obviously not the only parameter. You get views... and light requirements that make things even more complicated... but that's food for thought. ;)

Comment by djordje on October 8, 2012 at 6:10am: This is great project !!! Fantastic idea!

I understand that louvers sizes and numbers are related to the annual irradiation you got from Diva. But is there some threshold which you used as the maximum allowable value of irradiation that can be "applied" to a single panel?
In other words is there some criteria by which you dimensioned the louvers and it's numbers?

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