ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN MSD DDA JOURNAL

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DESIGN JOURNAL

ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN Student No: 850536, Masters Student , University of Melbourne

DIGITAL DESIGN APPLICATIONS ABPL90123 , University of Melbourne

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DESIGN JOURNAL

CONTENTS 01

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Brief

Inspiration / Concept

Initial ideas

Form finding

Model making

DESIGN CONTEXT

INSPIRATION, PRECEDENTS

ITERATIONS & EVOLUTION OF FORM

USING LADY BUG & KARAMBA

FABRICATION USING DIGITAL TOOLS

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PAGE 5

PAGE 6-8

PAGE 9-17

PAGE 18-21

TASK: This subject focuses on algorithmic digital form explorations using intensive computational scripting coupled with fabrication of detailed material models. The objective is to create a Performative canopy for the backyard of a G+1 house which considerably shades the balcony space during summer solistice, with the help of digital computation and fabrication techniques.

DIGITAL DESIGN APPLICATIONS |

ABPL90123 , University of Melbourne

SOLAR CANOPY DESIGN

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DESIGN BRIEF | ‘ Performative canopy ’

Task at hand

The main task for the ABPL90123 DDA elective was to design a and fabricate a 1:20 model of a medium scale structure that serves as sun-shade for the north-west facing backyard of a 2 storey family-unit with the façade of the first floor set back by 2.5 meters in order to accommodate a terrace. The canopy should shade the facade entirely between 2-5pm. As part of our design process, we were asked to analyse our design methodology in order to develop geometry optimisation criteria to fulfil the performative brief. In more detail: we had to understand the nature of decision to support our gain from structural and environmental performance in combination with parametric design updates. As part of our design process, we also had to consider how our proposed solution can be built, and subdivided so to fabricate its components at our Faculty’s Fab-Lab. The two main performance criteria for canopy project: The first criterion is the generation of its structural support system developed out of feedback we get from structural optimisation using tools such as Karamba/Kangaroo/Miliped or others.

The second (& connected criterion) is the design of the canopy roof (or membrane) to achieve maximum level of sun shading with minimum material usage while maintaining views out of the windows of both floors of the wall. physical models and software such as Diva or Ladybug/Honeybee useful allies in testing various options of our design for their shading-performance efficiency. All elements are non-moveable!

The canopy itself should be articulated across both floors. It can be setup as a free standing element or attached to the building (or even as a combination of the two). In any case we were asked to work with cantilevers to avoid creating ‘standard’ structural systems. Also we had to ensure that the structure obstructs movement of people under the canopy as little as possible.

The shade canopy should function in a way that it provides 100% shading to the building façade, the terrace, and the ground up to 3m in front of the facade between 2pm-5pm during summer solstice.

It was important that we do not try to copy results from the analysis literally (1:1) into your design, but that we select those most appropriate to us, interpret them, and start designing with those performance-results and fabrication constraints in mind. This implies a step away from understanding structure and shading as a technical add-on to our design. By flipping back and forth between the analogue and the digital models we had to advance our design with constant performance checks and had to compare the effects of geometrical changes on sustainability in close to real time.

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SITE LOCATION

CONTEXT

BALCONY DIMENSIONS SUN POSITIONS FROM 2PM TO 5PM DURING DEC - FEB MONTHS

The location of the site is assumed to be in Melbourne, Australia.

As per the brief the building is a two storey Structure with it’s backyard facing North-west, with the facade of the first floor set back by 2.5 meters in order to accommodate a terrace.

Using digital tools like Lady bug, The site’s weather data is uploaded into the plugin to identify the sun positions during the months of december to january months. The average mean vector is extracted to get an idea of the direction of the solar radiation

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INSPIRATION | Performative canopy

PRECEDENTS

INSPIRATION : FORM AA MEMBRANE CANOPY AA London.

The aspect that I like about the canopy is the form, that has the character of a single curvilinear fluidic surface that engulfs the space beneath like a huge blanket which is visually appealing.

MINIMAL TENSION CANOPY

by Robert Martin, Sydney.

The part of the canopy that interested me was that each component varies in width and depth according to their structural requirements and that these parts were itself constituting the structure. The resulting form was constructed by a number of laser cut and folded triangulations that act as steel angles, forcing the loads towards the boundaries.

INSPIRATION : FORM Catalyst Hexshell / MATSYS In this pavillion I liked the fluidic form of the whole structure that has a porous nature to it. And how the the form reaches down to the ground from the top. The structure here is made of cardboard and the idea is based on thin shell structures.

INSPIRATION : STRUCTURE

INSPIRATION : OPENINGS ARBOSKIN PAVILION

by ITKE, Germany The pavillion has a pyramidal modular skin with incremental varying size of openings that regulate the light entering through it. Here I liked idea of attractor points used to control the size of openings

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INITIAL IDEAS | CONCEPT

ITERATIONS IDEA For my canopy I had the idea of creating a fluidic free flowing surface starting from the roof of the building, draping down to a single point on the ground. Based on inspiration, I panelised it into quads and tried opening up the panels to create a porous self shading skin.

Based on the direction of the solar radiation derived from lady bug, I draped the canopy anchor point on the ground towards, the western side.

INFERENCE

The design of the canopy had a very porous nature and was shading the balcony space as the openings were bigger on the top of the balcony area.

For it to be structurally viable, the canopy had to be convex on the outside to transfer the load.

The Current iteration was screening too much of the front views.

The structure for this option needed to have a truss framework to hold the panels.

But I wanted the panels itself to be structural members. So I decided to change these panels into a folded plate structure with openings for my next iteration.

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INITIAL IDEAS | CONCEPT

ITERATIONS

My next stage of progress, was to employ to try adopting a folded plate structure using triangles. In this I tried was trying to control the size of the openings with respect to the distance from the origin point of panels to the average mean sun position. But Triangulation of the surface results in a narrow closely packed legs at the base which has too much of narrow members oriented at different angles that are difficult to fabricate.

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INITIAL IDEAS | CONCEPT

ITERATIONS

Based on lady bug study, the canopy structure’s anchor point was further moved towards the west and the edge of the canopy towards the west is draped lower to shade the west end of the balcony. So the resultant form lacked the structural character to be stable as the surface on the whole didnot still have a convex surface.

INFERENCE Based on the iterations I worked through, I came to the following conclusions to inform the design of my canopy: + Derive the form of my canopy based on the lady bug’s shadow analysis. + Split the surface into two parts the vertical surface that drapes in the front and the horizontal surface that shades the balcony from the top and regulate the size of the openings from separately.

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FORM FINDING | CONCEPT

LADY BUG STUDY

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Form Finding process: + Lady bug is used to simulate the shadow of the canopy surface falling on the balcony during the period of 2pm to 5pm on 22, december to february 22 initally. + The curves defining the canopy surface is bent to arcs to form a curvilinear dome like surface. + The Average sun position is obtained to determine the direction of solar radiation

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FORM FINDING | CONCEPT

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The south west Surface edge is stretched towards the south west to extend shading.

LADY BUG STUDY

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The south western tip of the canopy is lowered a bit to better shade the unshaded portions of the balcony. The surface is divided into 2 parts: The Roof, the vertical Shading structure.

The resultant surface potentially covers 87% of the building facade.

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The North east Surface edge is pulled towards the south west to optimise shading and achieve a single support point that drapes from top to the ground.

This is done based on the shadow feedback from the lady bug script

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Radiation analysis : Resultant solar radiation on the balcony with the canopy surface

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FORM FINDING | CONCEPT

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LADY BUG STUDY

The Surface is panelised into quads.

Form Finding process: The surface is subdivided into quads 4X3 Grids using lunchbox.

+ The front surface of the canopy is extracted and the panels are perforated. + The panel openings are inversely proportional to the distance between each panel center and the average mean sun position.

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The North east Surface edge is pulled towards the south west to optimise shading and achieve a single support point that drapes from top to the ground

+ This allows for minimal solar radiation to pass through the canopy to the balcony

ATTRACTOR POINT PANEL OPENINGS

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FORM FINDING | CONCEPT

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LADY BUG STUDY

+ The roof portion is subdivided further into 2 parts and the dividing edge is lifted up to separate surfaces 1) surface exposed to the 2-5pm sun.

2) surface exposed away from 2-5pm sun. + The openings are are made smaller on the panels exposed to the 2-5pm sun + The other panels facing away from the sun have larger openings to maximise views of the sky

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FORM FINDING | CONCEPT

LADY BUG STUDY

9 The interconnecting surface between the roof portion and front portion of the panel is blended with an intermediate surface The vertices of the roof edge and front surface edge is extracted and connected to create transitional surface between the two surfaces. This also helps in better load transfer compared to the previous stage.

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ANALYSIS

LADY BUG STUDY

SHADOW ANALYSIS

The final shadow analysis for the time between 2pm - 5pm during summer solistice 22, DEC.

RADIATION ANALYSIS

The final radiation analysis for the time between 2pm - 5pm during summer solistice 22, DEC.

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STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS STRESS ON STRUCTURE

KARAMBA STUDY The Structural analysis using karamba reveals that the structure is weak on the north eastern edge, due to the overhang.

Hence a vertical support is added in the balcony to support the canopy.

After computation, the stress is considerably reduced with the addition of new support

STRESS ON STRUCTURE AFTER ADDING SUPPORT

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VIEW ANALYSIS VIEW RANGE FROM BALCONY EYE LEVEL

N

NW

W

PLAN The diagram shows the view range of the user from the balcony space from a human eye level of 1 . 75m from the balcony floor level.

ELEVATION

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VIEWS

PERFORMATIVE CANOPY

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FABRICATION

850536 ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN

Sheet 01 of 05

SUPPORT PLATE THAT SITS ON THE ROOF

600.00

600.00

600.00

MODEL MAKING

850536 ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN

900.00

Sheet 02 of 05

850536 ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN

900.00

Sheet 03 of 05

900.00

Fill in the following details: Material :

BOX BOARD

600.00

600.00

Thickness : 1.8mm

850536 ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN

Sheet 04 of 05

900.00

LASER CUTTING TEMPLATE 850536 ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN

Sheet 05 of 05

- ARUNACHALAM LAKSHMANAN, - 850536

900.00

ASSEMBLY

VERTICAL STRIPS OF FOLDED PANEL PLATES

The assembly of the structure follows the idea of superimposing 2 layers of the same structure as folded plates in 2 opposite axes, that is horizontal ad vertical. the laser cut cardbboard vertical strips , forms the outer layer while a thinner horizontal membrane on the interior is superimposed over the outer membrane on the interior side to hold and perform as a single structure.

LASER CUT PIECES

HORIZONTAL STRIPS OF FOLDED PANEL PLATES

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MODEL MAKING

STAGES

CARDBOARD PLATES ARE FOLDED

INSERTION POINT FOR THE BASE OF THE STRUCTURE

HORIZONTAL STRIPS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPERIMPOSED TO HOLD TOGETHER THE VERTICAL STRIPS OF THE PLATE

VERTICAL STRIPS HELD TOGETHER

BY TEMPORARILY BY STICKY TAPE

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PHOTOS OF THE MODEL

PERFORMATIVE CANOPY