The Solar Mountain

TU Delft: Delft University of Technology

Project idea

The Blockmaker, the studio’s research explores the notion of what makes a housing block? Through data to design approach and parametric software thinking, the Blockmaker is a research software that allows one to generate multiple design solutions by transforming mass, reconfiguration of programs, accessibilities, porosity and generating options for façade and structure responsively to a climate condition.

My research question speculates on a scenario where a housing block would be self-sufficient with solar energy. How would it look like? How would it performs for power generation and at the same time generate better housing qualities for views, daylight and terraces? Can it create better qualities for a dwelling? In this studio, we add one parameter to observe the changes in our design intervention. In my case, for a block to be self-sufficient with solar panels, a parameter of energy demands with solar panel surfaces would be a primary aspect to consider. However, to make a housing block, it requires multiple parameters of housing qualities to finalise an optimised design decision.

Project description

1. Problem Statement
What if I would live self-sufficiently in a solar panel block?

With the constant progress development of photovoltaic technology, the efficiency of solar panels has been improved. Through this improvement, the hypothesis of living in a zero-energy building with clean alternative energy could be achieved. However, the current approach to harvesting solar energy is to build a large solar farm where the aesthetic of solar panels is detached from the urban environment.

The project investigates the notion of the self-sufficient condition, by harvesting solar energy for inhabitants’ electrical consumption, where a city would live independently from the local power grid. The thesis explores the potential and aesthetic of building-integrated photovoltaics in a high-density residential block.

2. Boundary and Context
For this research, the weather, climate, average electricity consumption is based on data from Barcelona Spain. The studio has given a three-dimensional boundary of 100m x 100m x 100m. Within this given footprint of 10000 m2, the essential problem is to arrange a suitable amount of programs between housing and energy production. It is essential that the block can sustain the dwelling with average annual household electricity consumption, of 3,500 kWh per year.

3.Goal
The ultimate goal for the graduation project is to create a series of iterations that would yield different program configurations among housing, energy production and service utilities. Furthermore, the design process of the self-sufficient block has to go into a loop of multiple analyses and evaluations. Therefore, a development of an evaluation tool in the design process would be a crucial process to proceed to the design execution. Moreover, the project wants to illustrate a spatial quality of dwelling and solar panels. The aim is to explore the beauty of this urban infrastructure, solar panels, that could intertwine with daily programs and illustrate a
didactic quality of sustainable living.

4. Method: The Block Maker
The Block Maker is software that would explain the initiative notion of the studio’s framework. One of the objectives of this parametric software is to be able to generate a city block based on different ‘what if’ scenarios and Floor area ratio. Through different Grasshopper scripts of geometry transformation, the software would generate a series of blocks with different qualities of daylight, views, and solar radiation.

The design methodology of the studio is to create a series of iterations that would yield the different possibilities of design outcomes. Each design decision will break down into topics and explored multiple variations before making a design decision. These decisions are made based on data, research and spatial quality. This methodology has constructed a critical framework working on this project.

5. The Design of the Solar Mountain is a test through blockmaker using it as a tool for design. Stating from creating context, create mass volume and then transforming it. By transforming these geometries, data and numbers were recorded to measure its energy production on the contrary to housing qualities: views, distance to terraces and proximity within the block. These three criteria are the specimen which representing the housing qualities in this research,

Technical information

1. The blockmaker iterations.
2. The blockmaker interface.
3. The Solar Moutain Isometric
4. Section of a solar mountain block
5. Plan Drawing and details

Co-authors

The Why Factory 2016-2017: Blockmakerframework.