Light Access and the Residential Development

Fall 2008 - Arch 226: Environmental Building Design

Light Access and the Residential Development

"Our modern neighbourhoods use a variety of housing types whose origin dates from the early modern period of design. This legacy has left us with varying conditions of "quality" in our neighbourhoods as a direct result of building spacing, interstitial space and access to natural light."

The purpose of the project is to understand the effect building spacing, orientation and placement as they affect natural lighting and access to light. This also changes the quality of life in the residential environment/neighbourhood. Residential neighbourhoods of varying building types (single family, multi family, apartments, etc.) all have a need for a certain quantity as well as quality of light. The closeness of buildings also impacts aspects of community, greenspace, privacy and general issues of sustainable design.

The parameters of the project require that you document in plan and section, then construct a simple model of a neighbourhood of specified size, of specified materials at a specific scale; bring the model to the class seminar where it will be “tested” and compared with other strategies.

This project is also a case study of an early modern building. We are exploring the various "famous" residential building types that are documented in Roger Sherwood's "Modern Housing Prototypes". Much of our current housing typology has been derived from these models. Are they good? Can they be improved? How would you make them more sustainable?

• course outline

• project outline

In groups of 4 students take one of the listed residential projects and:

1. Prepare a powerpoint case study, showing plans, sections, elevations, details, historical information, photos

2. Build a model of the project at an assigned scale.

3. Make suggestions as to some sustainable improvements or overall site modifications that would assist in allowing for both better solar access for heating, better daylighting, improved acoustics, more sustainable site materials

We devote one 3 hour class to student presentations - powerpoint and demonstration of the solar qualities of the development at summer and winter solstices. By the end of the class, the students have seen the full range of residential types for low to high density housing.

Quality of information contained in the powerpoint. Quality of actual presentation (participation, audio). Quality/craft of the lighting model. Value of suggestions for improvement to the project. (As these buildings are all by famous architects, the Beginning Design students are often quite astounded at how poorly they work in terms of shadowing and solar exposure.)