Senior Design Schedule

I’ve asked you to attend Senior Design presentations as part of the requirements for the last assignment.  Here’s the unofficial schedule for Tuesday through Friday of Week-10.

The presentations are in AEL-257, the department conference room – where they were last term.

Snow Day–Staying Productive

We won’t see each other till next Monday thanks to the snow.  Here are some suggestions of questions to consider to keep you productive in the meantime.

• Site

• How do vehicles access the site – and exit from it?

• Employees

• Visitors

• Service vehicles

• Emergency vehicles

• How important is pedestrian access?

• Where do they come from and go to?  Make assumptions if necessary.

• Is it important for your building to be visible from the roads?  If so:

• What aspect of the building should be emphasized?

• Does this mean the building should be right at the corner or somewhere else on the site?

• Building Plans

• Circulation

• Where is the main employee entrance?

• Where is the main service entrance?

• Should the visitor entrance be separate?

• Does every occupant have two separate protected exit paths to the exterior within 20’ of leaving their room/suite?

• Is there a need for a passenger and/or freight elevator?

• Adjacency

• Are the rooms/spaces of the building that need to be together in fact together

• Check what the building program said about this.

• Views

• Are there exterior views from the building that you should be taking advantage of?

• Energy Use

• Is the form or orientation of your building going to make it particularly costly or economical to occupy.

• e.g. In northern climates taking advantage of solar energy for heating often means relatively “skinny” buildings with their long axis east-west to capture sun for both heating and daylighting.

• Space Provision

• Have you checked the sizes of the spaces against what the program required?

• If there are differences can you explain why you made the changes?

• Building Elevations

• Are your elevations important for aesthetic impact?

• if so, what are their characteristics that address that impact?

• Are those elevations (and potentially roof skylights) going to help or hinder the building’s energy use?

• Related to this is the question of what are the materials of which the exterior envelope is made?

• Provision for Engineering Systems

• What’s the longest span in your building?

• Have you allowed enough depth for that span and HVAC and electrical systems?

• Will it be possible to address lateral loads with your design?

• Are their provisions for HVAC and plumbing equipment?

• Space in the floor plan that allows good duct runs, outside air and exhaust air, equipment servicing

• Is their sufficient space above the ceiling (or below the floor) for HVAC duct runs?

• These issues are often best considered via building sections.

• Are there vertical shafts sufficient for HVAC ducts (supply and return)

• Acoustic Issues

• Have you separated noisy spaces (e.g. mechanical rooms) from quiet spaces?

• Are there any special acoustic requirements that might affect the floor plan

A1 - Building Program Notes

Overall, the whole class did very well on this first assignment.

If I had to make some kind of suggestions based on what I saw, I would have to remind you to put some thought and effort into the minor sections of the assignment. It may be easy to leave the sections worth only ten points to the end, but even so, try to put some thought into those sections and provide all of the required content.

Going forward, it gets tougher before it gets easier. Be proactive and it will be quite feasible.

Some Quick Advice for this Term

This course is going to be very similar to last term's. The organization and grading will be much the same as you already experienced. I would like to note that it is beneficial to think ahead in this course. You will often be handed a design from a previous team along with the files associated with it.

Therefore, consider what software you will be using so as to make it easy for the next team to takeover.

I would strongly suggest using Revit, as it can be used for many different design disciplines.
Be aware of the software version. Often a newer version will not be compatible with an older one, I would therefore recommend only using software available on the Cad Lab computers.

As before, feel free to email me with any grading questions or concerns (jbbraley@gmail.com). You can also find me in my office (280F; across from Professor Mitchell's).

Good Luck,
John