1. Background
Considering the fact that currently over 40% of the energy consumption in the world is assigned to buildings, there is a tendency to achieve high-performance buildings. In this project, I plan to find a design process for building shading optimization design.
2. Building Original Shadings
2.1 Building Mass
I used the "rectangle" and "box" commands to build the building mass, which is controlled by three sliders. And then, use the "item list" command to divide glaze, walls, floor, and ceiling (shown in Figure 2 and 3).
Figure 1: Building Mass Grasshopper Commands
Figure 2: Building Box
2.2 Points on Surface
I used the "surface divide" command to find the points on Glaze surface. These points are original points (shown in Figure 3).
Figure 3: Point on Glaze Surface
2.3 Shadings
Based on these points, I used data structures to form the curves; and then used the "Sweep 1" command to build the shading devices (shown in Figure 4 and 5).
Figure 4: Shading Commands
Figure 5: Shadings on Facade
3 Building Shading Optimal Design
In order to find the better shading design, I used the "Repulsion Interference" idea to redesign the shading.
3.1 Interference Force
I used the "Population 2D" command to get several random points on the glaze surface, which are controlled by the number of interference point slider and position slider. Based on these points, I defined some circles. The radiuses of these circles are controlled by the Radius Min and Max, Radius Position, and Radius Factor sliders. Thus, the points are the interference center, and the radiuses are the power to interference the design of shading (shown in Figure 6 and 7).
Figure 6: Interference Force Idea
Figure 5: The Center and Power of the Interference
3.2 Python Script of Interference the movement of the original points on surface
Based on the repulsive interference idea (shown in Figure 8), I wrote the python script that shown in Figure 9 and 10.
Figure 8: Interference Idea
Figure 9: Python Script
Figure 10: Python Commend
3.3 New Shading
From the python output, I got a range of new points (shown in Figure 11). We can see that the points were interfered by the circles.
Figure 11: New Points
Based on these new points, I used the "Sweep" command to form the new shading (shown in Figure 12).
Figure 12: New Shadings
4. Daylight Performance IndicatorsUDI
Useful Daylighting Illuminance is daylight illuminance levels that are founded on hourly meteorological data for a period of a full year. This metric bins hourly time values based upon three illumination ranges, 0-100 lux, 100-2000 lux, and over 2000 lux.
The UDI paradigm informs not only on useful levels of daylight illuminance, but also on the propensity for excessive levels of daylight that are associated with occupant discomfort and unwanted solar gain.
Thus, in this project, I will use UDI as an indicator to improve the shading design.
5. DIVA
In DIVA calculator, there are three output about UDI: UDI 100-2000, UDI<100, and UDI>2000 (Shown in Figure 13). In this project, I used the UDI 100-2000 as the fitness input.
Figure 13: DIVA Calculator
I connected all the walls, glaze, floor, ceiling and shading with the DIVA (shown in Figure 14).
Figure 14: DIVA
The analysis nodes shown in the Figure 15. There are 80 nodes.
Figure 15: DIVA Analysis Nodes
Calculator the Results:
The results showed in the figure 16. Each node showed the percentage of daylight hours obtain UDI in a year (Figure 16).By the average command, we can see that floor received UDI average of 67.6% of the year.
Figure 16: UDI Value
Figure 17: UDI Graph
Figure 18: UDI Average
6. Optimization
I used the Galapagos command to get the optimal shading design. I set the average UDI as the fitness input, and the interference point number, position, and radius as the genetic inputs.
