Game 7:

Sun Case Study Atria Introduction:

A daylight study has been analyzed by using Archi CAD to stimulate the studio apartment. Obviously, when sunlight falls on an opaque object, it will begin to diffuse and immediately create shadows; in order to reduce overheat in a space, shadings are added to a certain location in the studio. Daylight is a combination of direct, reflected, and diffuse sunlight. Direct sunlight takes a straight path from the sun and is more intense than diffuse and reflected sunlight. Besides illuminating a building, direct sunlight also provides solar heat gain. Reflected sunlight strikes an object on the earth’s surface, such as a sidewalk, and bounces off the object in another direction. Diffuse daylight is sunlight that has been reflected or refracted by clouds or other objects. It accounts for most of the daylight received on a cloudy day. It is less intense than reflected light and covers a broader area. To improve the daylight effect, numerous techniques can be used to capture more sunlight, direct light to where it is needed, and reduce glare, heat loss, and heat gain. Daylight must be integrated with electric lighting, heating, cooling, and ventilation systems as well as occupant task and movement patterns. In fact, Archi CAD software does not illuminate the luminaries of daylight accurately; it only able to portray shadows created by the sunlight. It is too hard to observe the brightness of daylight in the space. Three sun studies are illustrated in this case, one is the exterior, which also includes the atrium; the other one is ground floor within the studio apartment and the last one on second level of the studio, which is the bedroom. Meanwhile, an alteration was done to the second floor bedroom by installing a half-round window on the North-facing wall.

Brief Description on Studio Apartment:

The studio is located at the very front of the atrium, in front of the reception. It is assumed that the staircase in the actual atrium is not existing. The design intention in two triangular shapes is to fit with the shaping of the glass glazing at the front of the atrium. In fact, I could not fit my studio into the real location I wished because the given school plan does not have the front part of the atrium. Anyway, there are two different materials of floor, timber and glass. The entire studio is supported by the crossing horizontal steel I-beams and several vertical steel I-beams at the intersection with the horizontal steel I-beams. In short, the studio apartment looks like a bird-cage penetrating to the roof and the façade of the school.

Observations:

Original video clip before alterations:

atriasummer_2ndfloor & atriawinter_2ndfloor

Three sets of renderings have been done in two different seasons, summer and winter. Besides that, some alterations were made by changing the designation and construction of the studio space in order to gain better performance of the sun case in the atrium. On the other hand, improvements were achieved by changing the orientation of openings or by installing more openings in order to allow more sunlight coming into the studio (atriasummer_2ndfloor_alt & atriawinter_2ndfloor_alt).

During winter period, there is no daylights coming in to the bedroom at all. Alteration was done by installing a half-round window on the North facing wall. There is a splash of light on the floor after alteration. Please refer to the picture beside. During summer period, there is no increasing on the level of luminance into the space no matter windows are installed or not.

Summer:

During the summer period, the sun angle is much higher, therefore more daylight is diffused into the entire atrium and studio apartment by shining through the transparent materials such as glass (atriasummer_exterior.AVI). The sun runs from South-east to North-west in this season. My studio absorbs a lot of sunlight especially in the noon period, the entire façade (main entrance of the studio, South) receives direct sunlight due to the high position of the sun. In the interior space clip, a large amount of sunlight splashes into the open kitchen area because the East façade is constructed by curtain glass wall. Then, it carries on to the front South façade and ends on the West façade. The sunlight unable to produce glare into the corridor because there is a staircase connecting to the bedroom upstairs and there is also some internal wall partitions are erected to cover the toilet underneath the staircase (atriasummer_interior.AVI). The bedroom also receive an excellent amount of daylight as the rotation of sunlight splashes from the cupboard on the left past the floor onto the bed (atriasummer_2ndfloor.AVI).

Winter:

During the winter period, the sun angle is lower than it used to be, hence, the studio receives less daylight and sunlight. In fact, this will make a huge change to the receiving amount of sunlight (atriawinter_exterior.AVI). In addition, the sun rises later in the morning and sets earlier in the noon, therefore, less daylight will be received by the studio apartment. In fact, there is no daylight coming into the space at all (atriawinter_2ndfloor.AVI). Curtain glass wall was erected on the East part of the apartment, therefore, there is a big amount of daylight splashing into the kitchen area during noon time; this is the peak time to gain direct sunlight for the whole day (atriawinter_interior.AVI).