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what is IDES About?
IDES is a subject that mimics major project that we are going to take next semester. It includes the generation of massing based on the design students' concept and come up with energy and wind-flow analysis using software such as BIMHVAC and Sketchup.
Our project is to upgrade an existing lodge for dementia patients. we have to take into consideration sustainability and their wellbeing while designing the building in a resort theme

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We made group. Members: Danyal, Harris and me, Tharun. We are to collaborate the project with design school students. Hence, we attended a presentation in the Auditorium with the design students. It was from some students who visited the Apex Harmony Lodge which we will be working on for background information. We learnt what dementia patients' suffering and what we can do to enhance their stay in the lodge.

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Beginning
Today was our first meeting with our design group mates for discussion. Before that we had a briefing from Mdm Sowmya about what is our role in the project which is to focus on the sustainability and wellbeing. we also performed FILA analysis. it is a thought process of facts, problem enquiries, learning issues and action plan. We used it to brainstorm whatever fact about the building based on sustainability, doubts, issues with it and also discussed as a group what we are going to do about it. At design school we discussed whatever we listed out on FILA. The building had an abundance of greenery and ease of accessibility points. However, there are information we do not have such as the daylighting and ventilation and universal design implementation. we do not know if the building had those. Our design partners cleared some and we decided to do simulation for the other factors.

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We continued our research stage by performing SWOT analysis. this allowed us to clearly list out the strengths of the building that we want to maintain and the weaknesses we have to improve on. the building had to much hardscape leading to high Urban Heat Island Effect. I understood that I have to increase softscape in the site for improvement.

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We created a presentation of our research and knowledge of previous semesters of site analysis. We used sketch up simulations of the existing building to talk about what we learnt about it (strength & weakness).  And we explained our site analysis via a video that we sent to the design students.
On Thursday, we continued with our sustainability implementation. For that we looked for what certification the building already had and goals we want to achieve

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By this lesson we have to have a design partner each for us to work closely with. We had to discuss of what sustainability features to implement into the building. I told my design partner, Kristen that I want to make the building like a rainforest with much more greenery. I also focused so much on the wellbeing portion since it is for dementia patients. I wanted to stimulate their 5 senses by implementing aromatic plants, sound of waterfall, touch of breeze and bright colours of flowers and nature.

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We, ABS group members conducted wind flow simulation using BIMHVAC. BIMHVAC is one of the lastest learnt software which took us quite a while to work with. This allowed us to asses the wind flow quality and what facade we can work on to maintain or further improve the ventilation. It will be the north facade.

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After completing Site analysis, I started on the design discovery brief individually. For that, Mdm Sowmya has asked us to question about the implementation of 5 sustainability area. I am also to conduct case studies on the strategies I want to implement

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I did case study on Egyptian Heritage Palace for skylight reflection using mirrors, SOTA for vertical greenery implementation, Cayan Tower for wind redirection and Changi Jewel for rainwater irrigation.

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My design partner proposed a model from discussing with her teacher. I saw it as a form that can integrate a lot of sustainability. I asked her to flip it to make the other block. She then start with planning her interior spaces. I started to plan where the water fall goes, where the softscape goes, where the vertical greeneries go and ways to further improve universal designs

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This was the initial output from our discussion. The waterfall was initially chosen to be placed at 3 places. the vertical greenery is placed at north and south to recieve afternoon sunlight so that the plants recieve light for a longer period in a day.

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I had execute my discovery brief preparation as slides with the basic form of the building concept.

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This is when we step into concept design when we actually know the trade offs and extra inputs we have to make. My design partner and I came up with the improved model on Revit. We cannot execute the 3D printed model due to the complexity of it. Hence, we took the gist of it and implemented it into the shape. The bigger block is a combination of previous block A and C. This has increased the softscape area. The 2 blocks have sloped walls sloping inwards and outwards. This can help to direct wind flow to all levels.

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Now that I have the massing, I start to implement my sustainability design strategies. I make use of my design partners spacing layout first to identify the occupancy load and where i have to focus on passive cooling more. so i took the centre to add the waterfall

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I also included greenery provision, water irrigation, daylighting, shading and wellbeing. I had to present a video on my concept with sustainability with the progress of the concept design as a slide.

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The next stage of Schematic design starts.
This is when facades and the sustainability strategies are looked more closely and check if they actually work. For this we are to work on the focus area our design partner has chosen. My partner chose bedrooms and the courtyard. I first started by making my revit model on sketch up to perform solar and shadow analysis. after that i imported my sketch up model with surrounding buildings into BIMHVAC to perform wind flow analysis. All these were done to check if the new design strategies are effective. The natural ventilation strategies, shading strategies and daylighting strategies are all effective, but there was improvement needed for daylighting into the room. I put all the information in a storyboard panel and submitted.

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This was the time when all of our pace was decreased due to the workload from other subjects. After Schematic design submission, I began with Detailed design. This is also to be done on the focus area. For this we have to use Knowledge from ECOARCH 1 to research and identify sustainable materials and their U values. The sustainability depends of the recyclability of the material and the thermal transmittance. This is because the thermal transmittance affects the cooling load required to maintain thermal comfort in the building. The more insulated the material is, the less cooling load required, saving more energy. After finding materials and selecting, I researched and found the U values. after that, I used the template given to calculate the ETTV. Afterwards, I generated the focus area on Dialux, a self learnt Software to place lights to calculate the Lighting Power Budget. I also used another self learnt software called OneclickLCA to evaluate the whole life carbon analysis of the materials used. I then put all this in a report and also made a storyboard of my progress from the first stage to this, detailed design stage.

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This Subject has made me used to bring my ECOARCH 1 knowledge to the core as it is the ultimate background to any sustainability strategy. This project also gave me a idea of how major project is going to be and how i can pace myself. This gives me confidence towards next semester. Just that the collaboration part with Design students was a bit difficult as we have submissions for other subjects at various time. Hence, it was difficult to share our progress to one another on time. For the model, it is not exactly the same as the initial idea and some are different from design partner's progress due to the timing issue and sustainability part. The project was done in a flow which made it easy to understand how design development works in the industry.