BC 2014 - Team Project Scenario
The City of Radford, VA would like to establish itself as a leader in the nation in terms of green infrastructure. One major element of the overall plan is to develop a series of small visitor centers throughout the City at key sites of historical, ecological, and recreational interest that will be part of a new, signature identity for the City. While the details of space layout and usage for each center will change from site to site based on the specific requirements for each center, the City council would like the overall appearance and character of each building to remain the same, both to reinforce the City's new identity and to reduce design and construction costs.
The City council represents a variety of interests, and has been unable to come to consensus as to what these new visitor centers should look like. They have agreed that the centers should have the following attributes:
- All will be one story buildings placed on either a strip footing or slab on grade, depending on the site
- All will require a controlled indoor climate to protect the displays contained in the buildings
- All will have a standing seam metal roof to match existing facilities in the city's portfolio.
The council desires these buildings to capture the new "green" identity being sought by the City. At the same time, they acknowledge that this program of visitor centers represents a significant cost to taxpayers, and they would like to come up with a design that represents best value to the City in terms of life cycle costs. They are also interested in supporting the local economy, and have committed to hire local firms to undertake the construction of the facilities.
To come up with a design that best fits both the City's goals and the local context, the council has agreed to fund a series of charrettes to examine a variety of alternatives for a prototype design for the visitor centers. An initial session resulted in twelve potential types of wall systems that the council would like to consider. Twelve independent teams have been recruited to investigate these systems in greater detail and to advocate their use in the charrettes. Your team is one of these twelve that will contribute to the discussion and help shape the future of the City.
What type of system will best meet the goals and requirements of the City? Your task for this semester is to assemble the evidence to answer this question so that you can make a sound recommendation at the end of the semester as to what type of system the City should choose. You will investigate four different types of considerations associated with each system: its technological performance, its human performance, its ecological performance, and its economic performance. You'll perform your analyses and document your results on this wiki in a page dedicated to your system type, and you'll present your findings on each type of performance consideration in a series of charrettes as we go along. |
