Hello everyone, I am a student of Building Design at ASU. I am initiating a research on buildings that have been known to cause problems of glare or excessive solar reflection to either neighboring properties (other buildings, vehicles on roads, people on streets etc.) or even parts of their own structure. For example, the Disney Concert Hall by Gehry. This is not an exercise to identify only famous examples that created problems. The purpose of my research is to develop a method to predict and analyse these reflections (preferably at design stage) and mitigate their impact.
I would appreciate archinecters giving me examples of such buildings that caused glare / reflection issues. Any other thoughts on this subject are welcome too. Thanks all.
For those interested, I would be happy to discuss my research in detail.
gehry's weisman art museum at the university of minnesota made some pretty bad glare - especially for drivers (like me) crossing the adjacent bridge. and that was way before disney.
But isn't that, what belong to the design process already ?
That calculations of both the building and it's shape are in a CAD drawing.
If you need that ; you extract it, that's the whole idea about CAD it is computer aided. If then this mean you need to acturly project it 3D to get these calculations from posisions stored in the 3D drawing then this is just a prove how 3D projecting can work a new perception ,but anyhow, this mean a 3D drawing , you can absotlutly do the same calculations from a paper drawing , use vellum and different color ink place all the sections ontop eachother and be able to view thru them the same as on a screen, why not ; take much longer create more dust, but think about it, with a 3D drawing you can draw a section wherever in 3D space --- from where a spectator stand at view posision and, the calculated vectors can have colors change even numbers put in, now that is a bit more difficult from the paper drawings.
Since you're in Phoenix (right? the Arizona ASU?), you might be interested in a somewhat local story, Foothills Mall in Tucson. It's a totally unremarkable mall, but when it opened in 1982 it was the newest "upscale shopping" in Tucson, and it was resoundlingly hated by local architects. At one area of the mall there was, as I recall, a curved mirrored glass wall - maybe two-three stories high? - with several palm trees planted in front of it. Within a year or two the palm trees all had fried.
The mall has since been extensively remopdeled and I think that glassy bit is gone.
Yes, you are right. A CAD program can help you to an extent to know the directions and the 'impact regions' of solar reflections bumping off a building surface. But it tells you nothing about its precise nature (sharp/diffused etc) or even its intensity in terms of visual glare and heat. I am currently trying my luck with programs like Ecotect and Radiance to do this. Good ol' AutoCAD is always going to be there too. In my knowledge, there has been extensive research on direct/reflected indoor glare caused by luminaires. So also, glare caused by direct sun coming into the interior. But when it comes to external reflections or glare caused by buildings and not direct sun, I did not see much done.
Thanks for the Tucson mall reference. I am only 1 year old in Phoenix! But I'll ask my professor about this. He's a new yorker but has been here in the valley for more than my lifetime.
Is anyone aware of any lawsuits that were filed against buildings causing glare problems? I read of a case where a school in Bangkok pulled the opposite building owners to court since their glass facade was blinding the kids.
Maya has some pretty accurate and powerful rendering for lighting. It was used to make films like Ice Age and other animated movies. Perhaps a quick attempt at recreating some bad effects would prove helpful (it's not too dissimilar from 3DsMax in operation). It is a bit inaccurate for precise measurements, that's why it's not very popular for more scientific pursuits, but it sure can make some pretty effects.
Yeah Maya sure is a tip top snazzy program, cool all tha way. But like you said, it won't give us numbers, only pictures. In my research, I won't be making visual-friendly presentations to other architects or client organizations. The reviewers are people who are seasoned researchers themselves, with a knack to read numbers for what they are worth.
I had kind of a research proposal defense today. During the presentation, I said something without really having thought about it before (nice start about 'not thinking'!!). I think one reason why most architects would not closely look at issues like energy simulation or other problems (like the one of glare) is because it simply involves complicated investigation of details and sort of messy "engineering-oriented" ways of doing that. When I say architects, I mean the actual design team working on the building. They might chart out the analysis activity to some specialist (which is fine), and later simply follow the technical recommendation provided to them. They would seldom take the efforts of delving deeper enough to understand the basic logistics of what the techies tell them...seldom would they question the complex recommendations...This is not some universal truth and there are exceptions. If the design team was equipped with some knowledge and technical capability of doing this on their own, wow, that would be nice...Nice, because then they become an integral part of the technical design(like technically thought building orientation and size) later to be nourished to perfection by experts. My point is, if we could make these design-investigative technologies a bit more simpler to comprehend, a bit more adaptive to the architectural process and most of all if we could make architects understand how greatly (and with marvellous simplicity) it could help them touch their design objectives without having somebody from LEED telling them that they could have done better...well, then we got something!
Check out the Bellsouth Building in Nashville, TN. Other monikers include the Batman Building and the Transformer. It's obliqued surface near the top causes horrible glare miles away on the interstate.
I worked on a building about 3 miles away from the Bellsouth. The glare from the building from 2-4 o'clock was so bad that the office had to reconfigure their desks so their monitors, then they had to tint their back windows to block the reflection that shot right into their office.
It seems the advice above involving computer modelling and lighting may have helped minimize the effect of the obliqued surface.
Building glare / reflection problems: Good, bad and ugly
Hello everyone, I am a student of Building Design at ASU. I am initiating a research on buildings that have been known to cause problems of glare or excessive solar reflection to either neighboring properties (other buildings, vehicles on roads, people on streets etc.) or even parts of their own structure. For example, the Disney Concert Hall by Gehry. This is not an exercise to identify only famous examples that created problems. The purpose of my research is to develop a method to predict and analyse these reflections (preferably at design stage) and mitigate their impact.
I would appreciate archinecters giving me examples of such buildings that caused glare / reflection issues. Any other thoughts on this subject are welcome too. Thanks all.
For those interested, I would be happy to discuss my research in detail.
I'm afraid that's all I have to offer. Cool project, good luck with your research.
Architectural Manifesto For Today...
Make Big Buildings. Make Them Shiny. Make A Shiny Building On The Hill. Shine On You Crazy Building...
gehry's weisman art museum at the university of minnesota made some pretty bad glare - especially for drivers (like me) crossing the adjacent bridge. and that was way before disney.
Thanks folks. I hope more people respond.
But isn't that, what belong to the design process already ?
That calculations of both the building and it's shape are in a CAD drawing.
If you need that ; you extract it, that's the whole idea about CAD it is computer aided. If then this mean you need to acturly project it 3D to get these calculations from posisions stored in the 3D drawing then this is just a prove how 3D projecting can work a new perception ,but anyhow, this mean a 3D drawing , you can absotlutly do the same calculations from a paper drawing , use vellum and different color ink place all the sections ontop eachother and be able to view thru them the same as on a screen, why not ; take much longer create more dust, but think about it, with a 3D drawing you can draw a section wherever in 3D space --- from where a spectator stand at view posision and, the calculated vectors can have colors change even numbers put in, now that is a bit more difficult from the paper drawings.
Since you're in Phoenix (right? the Arizona ASU?), you might be interested in a somewhat local story, Foothills Mall in Tucson. It's a totally unremarkable mall, but when it opened in 1982 it was the newest "upscale shopping" in Tucson, and it was resoundlingly hated by local architects. At one area of the mall there was, as I recall, a curved mirrored glass wall - maybe two-three stories high? - with several palm trees planted in front of it. Within a year or two the palm trees all had fried.
The mall has since been extensively remopdeled and I think that glassy bit is gone.
@ PerCorell-
Yes, you are right. A CAD program can help you to an extent to know the directions and the 'impact regions' of solar reflections bumping off a building surface. But it tells you nothing about its precise nature (sharp/diffused etc) or even its intensity in terms of visual glare and heat. I am currently trying my luck with programs like Ecotect and Radiance to do this. Good ol' AutoCAD is always going to be there too. In my knowledge, there has been extensive research on direct/reflected indoor glare caused by luminaires. So also, glare caused by direct sun coming into the interior. But when it comes to external reflections or glare caused by buildings and not direct sun, I did not see much done.
@liberty bell-
Thanks for the Tucson mall reference. I am only 1 year old in Phoenix! But I'll ask my professor about this. He's a new yorker but has been here in the valley for more than my lifetime.
Is anyone aware of any lawsuits that were filed against buildings causing glare problems? I read of a case where a school in Bangkok pulled the opposite building owners to court since their glass facade was blinding the kids.
Maya has some pretty accurate and powerful rendering for lighting. It was used to make films like Ice Age and other animated movies. Perhaps a quick attempt at recreating some bad effects would prove helpful (it's not too dissimilar from 3DsMax in operation). It is a bit inaccurate for precise measurements, that's why it's not very popular for more scientific pursuits, but it sure can make some pretty effects.
@darwindmartin-
Yeah Maya sure is a tip top snazzy program, cool all tha way. But like you said, it won't give us numbers, only pictures. In my research, I won't be making visual-friendly presentations to other architects or client organizations. The reviewers are people who are seasoned researchers themselves, with a knack to read numbers for what they are worth.
I had kind of a research proposal defense today. During the presentation, I said something without really having thought about it before (nice start about 'not thinking'!!). I think one reason why most architects would not closely look at issues like energy simulation or other problems (like the one of glare) is because it simply involves complicated investigation of details and sort of messy "engineering-oriented" ways of doing that. When I say architects, I mean the actual design team working on the building. They might chart out the analysis activity to some specialist (which is fine), and later simply follow the technical recommendation provided to them. They would seldom take the efforts of delving deeper enough to understand the basic logistics of what the techies tell them...seldom would they question the complex recommendations...This is not some universal truth and there are exceptions. If the design team was equipped with some knowledge and technical capability of doing this on their own, wow, that would be nice...Nice, because then they become an integral part of the technical design(like technically thought building orientation and size) later to be nourished to perfection by experts. My point is, if we could make these design-investigative technologies a bit more simpler to comprehend, a bit more adaptive to the architectural process and most of all if we could make architects understand how greatly (and with marvellous simplicity) it could help them touch their design objectives without having somebody from LEED telling them that they could have done better...well, then we got something!
Check out the Bellsouth Building in Nashville, TN. Other monikers include the Batman Building and the Transformer. It's obliqued surface near the top causes horrible glare miles away on the interstate.
I worked on a building about 3 miles away from the Bellsouth. The glare from the building from 2-4 o'clock was so bad that the office had to reconfigure their desks so their monitors, then they had to tint their back windows to block the reflection that shot right into their office.
It seems the advice above involving computer modelling and lighting may have helped minimize the effect of the obliqued surface.
--------- And it could also inspire to some unique solutions , but ofcaurse that mean a revolution in architecture.
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