Trimira Garach

GANGXIA URBAN VILLAGE

Thesis Research Study

Studio_TRD1
Date_fall2015.
Media_illustrator. rhino 5. grasshopper. 

Gangxia Urban Village was chosen as a site study early in my thesis investigation for its sheer density and problematic lack of access to natural light. Though the issue was not addressed in the subsequent Illuminated Veil study, this particular analysis did reveal the shortcomings of the tools that we as architects currently use to understand site conditions, specifically in terms of sunlight exposure. This study begins with the use of an environmental plug-in for Grasshopper, Ladybug, and concludes with a manual analysis of a sampling of the urban fabric, which reveals the shortcomings of an averaged assessment over time for an architect interested in designing to maximise a resident’s engagement with the light that they do, in fact, have access to.

Standard Solar Study Diagrams:

These diagrams, including a solid/void and grain analysis, are the products of a conventional approach to assessing light in an urban context. The solid/void and grain diagrams indicate an extremely dense urban fabric with little by way of consistent passages through which light can penetrate the densely packed urban village. The sunlight hours and shadow studies completed using Ladybug, an environmental plug-in for Grasshopper, show that the cumulative quantity of sunlight hours is very low throughout the village. However, this information references the analysis of a very broad sampling of time, and doesn’t inform the architect of the movement of light throughout the fabric over the course of the day. This is the issue that the second series of diagrams seeks to address.

Temporal Study Diagrams:

The following drawings address the issue of a too-distant view of light’s presence throughout the urban fabric by taking a sample of nine buildings from the surrounding village and manually cutting the forms along the boundary between light and shadow. Because this assessment is done geometrically, the forms can then be unrolled and analysed, as opposed to simply viewed and rotated as a whole within the modelling application (Rhino). Through this painstaking process, it is possible to begin to understand how quickly and in what manner the boundary between light and shadow changes throughout the day. The final panel showcases two drawings: the drawing on the right recreates the cumulative SunlightHours diagram by using additive layers of opacity; the drawing on the left, however, uses a thickening line to show the movement of the boundary between lit and shadowed surface over the course of the day. The progressive movement of the line toward an edge before it slips around it and illuminates or shadows the entire surface presents an alternate point of view regarding the temporal presence of light in the area over the course of a day. Though the more conventional drawing clearly exposes the rather bleak truth regarding the number of sun hours received by the building surfaces as an average over a longer period, the second drawing more effectively allows the viewer to find and understand light as an agent that slips and slides over and between buildings, sometimes arresting entire facades and other times only obliquely catching edges.