site analysis and pre-schematic design

Project 2- Stage 1 Site Analysis and Pre-schematic Design

AENG 321 Dr. Ahmed Sherif

Group 8: Aya Fayez Amira Abdel-Rahman Hadeer Atef Salma Samir Sarah Mokhtar

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Branding and Concept: The products that we decided to display in our showroom are BMW cars. The showroom that we intend to design will embrace BMW’s main themes, characteristics and slogans. The current BMW theme revolves around the idea of driving pleasure, dynamics, efficienc y and joy. BMW cars are characterized by smooth edges, and planar shapes rather than rectilinear shapes and sharp edges. This shaped our concept of design which is about “And not Or” and “Dynamics and Efficiency”, from which we got the inspiration from a video on the BMW official website: http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficientdynamics/phase_1/introduction.html Our design would thus accommodate for aesthetics in line with efficiency and functionality. The shape was then inspired by that concept. The dashboard of the BMW car evolved to be, according to us, the link with “And not Or”, “Dynamics and Efficiency” because this element of the car includes both the speed indicator which symbolizes dynamics while the fuel quantity indicator which symbolizes efficiency.

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The shape:

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Fig .3: Sources of Inspiration

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The structure is divided into two buildings: an office building and the showroom building for functionality and to give privacy and confidentiality to the employees. However they are still connected by the patio and the steel structure.

1- This building is mostly made of glass. It is the showroom part (public part of the project).

2- This building will be mostly made of steel.

However there will be a lot of windows to provide natural lighting. This is the office building. The left part of the building will be the maintenance area and there will be a special entrance for the cars whether to the office building or the showroom building. The middle part will be for the employees. It will contain many windows overlooking the car showroom so they won't feel isolated from the main function of the building. The right part is the lecture hall and training center. It will have a special entrance for the visitors and from the exterior it will have the BMW logo (fig. 6).

3- The space between the two buildings will be used as an open air patio, which will be a waiting and resting area for both clients and employees as it is in a strategic place between the office building and the showroom building. There will be shading devices at the top accompanied with sitting areas and greenery. The fact that this area is opened from the two sides will generate natural and cross ventilation.

4- The two buildings are connected by this steel structure. However, it isn't just for an aesthetic

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purpose but it is also to shade the south east area Fig. 6 where the sun is mostly directed. Moreover it will be like a landmark for the building for clients to remember and recognize it. It is inspired from the steel structure in front of the new Air and Space Museum in Washington Dulles (fig. 3).

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Site Analysis Location: We decided to choose a site on a highway, in a lightly populated area with low traffic for our car showroom. The reason for that is that we want the customer to appreciate and value the displayed product away from the noise, pollution and the traffic in downtown but at the same time, it should have dynamism and the highway gives

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that effect.

The site is located in New Cairo, overlooking two major streets; the 90 Road and the Ring Road.

These two roads are highly important in that area and have relatively high traffic compared to the rest of the neighborhood. To reach the site from Fig. 9

downtown, the customer will take about one hour and from Heliopolis about 40 minutes in a moderate traffic. It's exactly at the beginning of the 90 Road and its intersection with the Ring Road.

Therefore, the site is easily accessed and the

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entrance to the showroom will be on the 90 Road.

Neighborhood Context: The 90 Road has become a major industrial and commercial area over the past couple of years. So there are many companies, malls and showrooms on that road. In regards to competitions, there’s a car showroom that’s located on the 90 Road that’s about 756.2 meters from the site but it hasn’t opened yet.

Another possible competition is the Honda showroom on Fig. 10 the circular road; it’s at a distance of 1767.3 meters from the site and the Toyota showroom located just a few meters away from the Honda sales place (fig 10). The rest of the surroundings are a mixture of residential units and compounds besides some companies, which will work to our benefit on the long run. Since the owners or the employees of these areas are possible clients of the project. .

Reason why the building is located in this site in particular: 

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BMW is a high class product so it fits with the environment the fifth settlement.

It is one of a kind showroom (hybrid and concept cars), the first showroom of this kind so it has to be in a perfect place in order to market for this new product.

The position the building makes efficient use of the intersection.

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Size: With a width of 270 meters and 580 meters of length, the approximate area is 1566 meter squared. However, we will only use the red marked area as shown in figure 12. Its width is approximately 175 m and length is 200 m. That size of an area would be needed to build a car showroom which by nature accommodates such relatively big products which need a big outdoor and indoor display areas and an even bigger services, preparation, maintenance area and landscape.

Fig. 12

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Topography: This following table illustrates the slopes and elevations of the land. The numbers show multiple elevations of the land (from sea surface in meters) and they are taken for intervals of approximately 25 meters.

The first row is the elevation of the 90th road, and the first column is the elevation of the Ring road:

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As one can notice from the arrows, the land is generally sloped downwards (2%) towards the North West.

Moreover, the land is generally higher than the roads as there is a difference 1 meter between the land and the 90th road elevation and a difference of 4 meters between the land level and the ring road. This must be taken into consideration concerning the visibility of the showroom in relation to the eye level of the customers riding their cars.

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Fig. 13: Geotechnical Analysis Using GIS (Geographical Information System)

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As seen in figure 13, the land is composed of "limestone, clastic and gypsum".

This limestone is strong and could support stresses.

However, this soil has to be dealt with special care as it won't support any leakage.

Therefore, while building, weathered and fragmented rocks shouldn't be used and it is preferred to use fresh rocks.

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Fig. 14: Hydrogeological Analysis Using GIS

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From the figure 14, in the project site there is "local and low to moderate productive aquifer, and insignificant surface recharge".

This means that there is no harm of groundwater when building basements and underground parking.

However, there will be no source of groundwater supply and irrigation, so other sources of water supply have to be used.

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Climate:

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The weather is generally warm all year around and the temperature could reach a maximu m of 40 degrees Celsius in summer. In addition to that, the sunrays hit the site directly as there are no close buildings creating any kind of shading. The direction of the sunrays is Northern East. The wind is directed towards the west.

Training Center There are many things that should be taken into account regarding that part of the project. The training centre, in a car showroom practically, should be generally into two parts; a part of the employees and another part for the technicians. The employees’ part should include meeting rooms, offices as well as small training areas. As for the technicians’ part it should include a

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workshop and some small training rooms as well. The employees’ area will be given a white code and the technicians’ part will be given a blue code.

A fairly sized lecture hall of approximate size of 200 seats will also be needed in case of a general gathering or a lecture that is required to be given to a large number of people. The lecture hall will be located in a strategic place such that both technicians and employees have convincing access to it from their working spaces and also it will have a direct access from the outside not located in the depth of the showroom, in order that if a lecturer will come from outside, he won’t go all the way inside the showroom.