Design Schemes

Design Schemes convert environmental data into concrete architectural suggestions. They can generate the distribution layout for multiple buildings or define the specific massing of a single volume. These schemes can be applied to a single data layer, mixed layers, or filtered datasets.

Creating a Design Scheme

1. Click New and enter a Name for your Design Scheme.

2. Choose the Footprint:

   • Full Site: The volume is automatically generated based on the boundary defined by the currently active Sensor Points of the selected Data Layer.

   • Hand Drawn: The volume is constrained within the perimeter of a custom area drawn manually inside the Analysis Area.
     
     

3. Select the volume Type:

   • Single Volume: 

     • Hull: A simplified, solid massing volume.

     • Oriented Volume: A solid massing composed of slabs oriented according to the vector directions provided by the selected Data Layer.

     • Box: A bounding box wrapped around the active Sensor Points with a customizable horizontal rotation angle.

   • Floor Based: A fully articulated volume consisting of floor slabs, facades, and modular building components.
     
     

4. Add: 

   • If set to Full Site, the scheme is instantly generated.

   • If set to Hand Drawn, manually sketch the perimeter (or multiple perimeters to generate separate blocks) inside the Analysis Area.
     
     

5. Assign Layer: Once created, you can link the Design Scheme to a different Main Layer to drive its geometry.

Customizing Floor-Based Attributes

If you select a Floor-Based volume type, you can unlock advanced parametric controls for borders, floors, facades, and building components:

1. Borders:

   • Border Layer: assign the reference Data Layer. You can choose to link the floor generation directly to the presence of Sensor Points. When Link is enabled, any floor that contains no active Sensor Points is automatically hidden. If Link is disabled while Active Sensor Points are set as the border type, the configuration automatically switches to Footprint by default, and Sensor Points can no longer be selected.

   • Border Amount: Choose between a Single or Dual border layout.

   • Border Type: Select the reference geometry: Active Sensor Points, Footprint (corresponding to the full Analysis Area), Buildable Border, Project Sketch (if available), Hand Drawn, or Box.

   • Concaveness: Adjust the slider to define how strictly the generated Design Scheme should conform to the irregularities of the footprint shape.
     
     

2. Floors: Parametrically customize structural dimensions: Ground Floor Height, Floor Height, Slab Thickness, and overall Building Height. 
   
   

3. Facades: 

   • Type: Choose the architectural skin behavior:

     • No Facades: Structural slabs only.

     • Fully Transparent: Totally glazed envelope.

     • Fully Opaque: Totally solid envelope.

     • Transparent in Main Direction: Generates glazed panels aligned with the primary vector direction of the linked data layer.

     • With openings:Generates parametric window openings mapped to the values of the sensor points on the surfaces.

     • Horizontally Oriented: Generates horizontal panels aligned with the direction of the connected layer.  

   • Direction: Define the geometric logic for panel orientation:

     • Volume Average: One uniform orientation applied to the entire building mass.

     • Floor Average: Localized orientation calculated independently per level.

     • Facade Average: Localized orientation calculated independently for each distinct facade orientation.

   • Segment Width: Adjust the horizontal width of the individual panels or segments that compose the facade.

    

4. Components: Add one or multiple dynamic architectural elements to your building envelope. For each component, you can adjust specific dimensional parameters and link them to an independent data layer:

   • PVs: Select a Sun simulation Data Layer to connect. You can analyze data yearly to evaluate total annual solar radiation, monthly to target specific heating (e.g. January) or cooling (e.g. July) demand peaks, or daily to address specific peak-load hours during the day. Use the sliders to modify panel dimensions, appearance, and positioning. By adjusting their elevation and offset, PV panels can be placed as upper shading devices or as lower parapets.

   • Shadings: Select a Sun simulation Data Layer to connect. The depth of the shadings can automatically adapt based on the data layer values or be manually defined. 

   • Balconies: Select a Data Layer to connect, such as Sun or View simulations, to dynamically drive their distribution, and define their depth.

   • Green Surfaces: Select a Data Layer to connect, such as Sun or Noise simulations, to optimize vegetation placement for heating mitigation or acoustic buffering, and define their depth.