Recently I have been going through some old files and found this parametric study I had done. I thought it would be worth sharing. The study focused on housing in NYC, specifically large residential developments like Stuyvesant Town. The narrow floor plates in cross like morpholgies of the Stuy Town housing offers increased access to light and air. However the protrusions don't differ from one facade to another and seem to be based on a classical orthogonal relationship to the grid rather than solar or air flows and rhythms.
 |
| Ariel of Stuyvesant Town (center) |
The first part of the Grasshopper script creates a stepped building with variable depth protrusions or teeth. At this point the depth of the protrusions are not functional.
 |
| Script to create "tooth" effect along a give curve or structure |
The second part of the script creates two programmatic ovals. One of the many criticisms of the tower and the park style is the distance of a given apartment to the street aka public space. One can imagine a mother poking her head out of a brownstone window to watch her children play. Jane Jacobs fans know this as "eyes on the street". Despite the survival of many of the low rise neighborhoods, the street has increasingly transformed from a multi-function essential living space to the private, dirty and dangerous realm of the automobile. The double oval system can achieve high-rise density and create public spaces connected to the upper levels of the tower while saving footprint area for green space. The green bar represents dense housing and the red a mixture of retail and public space with a green roof.
 |
| The script for the two programmatic oval |
The final combination of the two scripts uses solar radiation data outputted from Ecotect. The solar radiation gradient along the housing oval is used to create the protrusions depths. The Southern protrusions project the farthest offering self shading from the hot summer sun. On the Northern Side the protrusions sink into the facade maximizing use of the weaker diffuse light. The Protrusions could be sized anywhere from a whole room to a bay window. They increase FAR and access to light with consideration to the sun's seasonal movements.
 |
| The combination of the two scripts with ecotect data overlay on the right |
