A1–Your Comments and Suggestions

The graders gather all your comments and forward them to Professor Dasaro and me.  What follows are my reactions to some of your comments and then the comments themselves.

eQuest

• Several of you questioned using eQuest because it wasn’t detailed enough.
• Comment:  knowing the approximate energy usage for a building as well as it’s overall equipment information is a great baseline for later developments.
• One group advised against using locations outside the US because there aren’t weather files available
• Comment:  As with the first issue, using a place that is approximately like the chosen one will provide worthwhile information even if it isn’t perfect.  Obviously on a real project you would put some effort into getting better weather information.

Costs

• There was an excellent suggestion that addressing costs would be worthwhile at a more detailed letter.
• Comment:  Yes it would.  I have downplayed cost analysis because of the time involved.  You are most welcome to get quite involved in that during senior design.

Spreadsheet

• We received many excellent, detailed suggestions on improving it. One person suggested, for instance, adding columns so that internal HVAC loads weren’t the only ones addressed in it.  Others made specific suggestions about graphs, scrolling etc. 
• Comment:  Agreed, All are worthwhile.  This template was intended as a starter with the expectation that you might choose to improve it.  If you want to send me an improved format(s) for the spreadsheet I’ll be happy to update the template and give credit.

Grading

• One person suggested adjusting the points to reflect even workloads between team members.
• Comment:  I cannot agree with this one.  The work world often requires that people overlap on certain aspects of a project.  It’s not about even division – it’s about getting the project done.

Jim Mitchell

The compilation of suggestions follow:

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Suggestions for Improving the Assignment

1. Remove the Equest portion, unless more information is known about the building's design. I felt that too many assumptions were made regarding construction information for walls, windows, and roofs which may lead to an inaccurate analysis. This was especially true for a temporary structure where it is not a standard design.

Only have sites within the United States and territories. It was sometimes difficult finding the necessary information for the site. Haiti lacks building codes and the IBC only has site information for the United States and US territories. Haiti was also not available as a site location for the Equest analysis. We had to substitute weather data from Miami, FL which is a few hundred miles north of Port-au-Prince.

2. More accurate information and inputs with details on eQuest Stimulation analysis will be helpful in analyzing the loading information especially for HVAC program design.  The 15-20 CMF design of the HVAC program will be higher for the reality.  More comparison of existing similar building structures will be helpful.
The building is designated for graduate students dormitory, therefore the majority of the design will dedicated to the dorm room and common place such kitchen and bathroom.  The dorm room is designed for single person with individual bathroom and sink.  The dimension of 10x10 might be slightly smaller.
Over all, the design can be improved with more in depth analysis along with the consideration of seasonal occupancy and different area/zoning occupancy.

3. In this assignment, more details could be added to each program. For architecture, the overall design and theme of the building could be included. This would allow for a better transition for the next group.
I would also add a power point presentation for the excel spreadsheet. The excel spreadsheet was a great idea but definitely needs more clarity. The notes for each cell were somewhat helpful, but were very unclear in some parts.

4. The Assignment Description did not require to prepare programs neither plumbing nor fire protection. While plumbing is specialized only in some types of buildings and somewhat similar system can be used in most of the buildings, fire protection codes and requirement vary greatly with different types of occupancies and sizes of buildings. Building codes go into great detail in covering all of the fire protection aspects. I strongly recommend including at least fire protection  into the program, and if a class could be added to the assignment, plumbing should be added as well.

There should also be an actually called out Site Programming. Currently site can be covered in both Architectural and Structural Programs, but if there was a separate Site rogram required, the overall program would be more complete and more clear.

The HVAC fields for internal gains proved confusing for a number of groups.  The field asking groups to enter heat loads/SF should be explained.  While the spreadsheet is asking for general estimates based on experience, this is not easily understood, as a number of groups first assumed we must do some Btu/hr calculation rather than simple estimation.  A better explanation of these cells would solve this problem.

5. The assignment is structured very well.  Students are able to begin understanding initial building design and programming using spreadsheet and building information modeling programs to help determine data specific to a project, rather than depend on data from code and assumptions alone.  This is a crucial step in sustainable design.  In this assignment, in the HVAC portion in particular, energy conservation studies can be done quickly using results from the eQuest program output, and high efficiency systems and setups can be conceived using basic engineering and design intuition.
Students in the future should be required to analyze basic costs of the components in each system in order to understand the relative cost of some items to the overall cost of the building design and construction.  They should also incorporate an integrated design mentality even at the programming stage when coming up with values and numbers in the spreadsheet.  In other words, students should be given more time to study the accuracy of the numbers that they input into the table and understand how certain aspects such as cost, area required, weight, cooling load, and maintenance frequency of things in a building affect each system's layout and design.  Knowing how the systems interact in this way can help with the integrated design process.

6. Suggestions for the assignment in the future:

1. Improve the spreadsheet format so that it's not suggested that HVAC internal loads are the entire loads of the building.  Create formulas to calculate HVAC design loads based on peak information extracted from eQuest.
2. Perhaps split the assignment into two parts.  The first would be a very short segment that was entirely architectural programming.  Each team could come up with a few different programs that might meet client demands.  At the end, each project would have a set architectural program-- a basic building layout and space allocation.  The second phase would be structural and HVAC design, which could proceed with more clarity and specificity if at least the contours of the building design were already set.  Of course, the process should ideally be collaborative or at least iterative.

7. One way to improve this project in the future would be to adjust the point breakdown in the grading of the assignment so that depending on the number of group members per group, the points would split up evenly so that nobody felt as though they had to shoulder a majority of the work. This could teamwork within teams knowing that everyone in the group was responsible for the same amount of the project as everyone else.

8. Remove the Equest portion, unless more information is known about the building's design. I felt that too many assumptions were made regarding construction information for walls, windows, and roofs which may lead to an inaccurate analysis. This was especially true for a temporary structure where it is not a standard design.

Only have sites within the United States and territories. It was sometimes difficult finding the necessary information for the site. Haiti lacks building codes and the IBC only has site information for the United States and US territories. Haiti was also not available as a site location for the Equest analysis. We had to substitute weather data from Miami, FL which is a few hundred miles north of Port-au-Prince. 

Functional Enhancements to the Programming Spreadsheet

1. Columns were added to the structural section for maximum spans and deflections. The plumbing section was modified to have fixtures and fixture units per room with the total fixture units for each room type. All display tabs were filled out using the example format from the Architecture display tab.

2. Overall the spreadsheet was easy to use, and streamlined the process of programming the building. It was well designed and simple. Something that was occasionally confusing was how the scroll bar didn't include the two leftmost columns. However, once I adjusted to this it was actually helpful since it allowed the room title to be on the screen no matter what section of the spreadsheet was being worked on.
One suggestion for improvement that comes to mind is a bar graph or pie chart that continuously updates, and shows the percentages of spacial allocations. The graph would show what percentage of the building is occupied by lab space, office space, bathrooms, etc... Displaying a visual representation of the breakdown of the spaces in the building could help to ensure that the building is designed with the appropriate space for each function.
Another thing to consider is including the site dimensions in the spreadsheet. The pros of this would be that it might create a more realistic assignment, since the site is usually decided upon before programming begins. However, this would make things more difficult and dampen creativity by making the class design around an additional parameter.

3. The spreadsheet was a great tool to use. Inputting data on the spreadsheet in the beginning was very hard. The beginning page was very overwhelming. This could be solved if  the spreadsheet was broken up more. Instead of beginning with a huge data sheet, the different systems could be broken up in the beginning. The final data sheet should use the  "LOOKUP" function from each system data sheet, rather than the other way around

4. Spreadsheet template was created around 2002 (I believe). Some additional information should be included to accommodate the latest trends. There should be a LEED Scorecard included. Also, energy requirement cells should have conditional color coding included to alert programmers when their design is reaching inefficient values.

One example, which my group encountered, was square footage and cost estimate for the parking lot. There should be a Site Program on spreadsheet as well to include site preparation costs, since those costs cannot be estimated within the same range as the building.

5. The spreadsheet is set up very well and includes most of the required building programming information requested by the assignment guidelines.  However, there should be some aesthetic improvements that could also improve the functionality and organization of the spreadsheet.  Each building system studied, for example, should have its own outlined box or border so that the dividing line between each major section can be more easily discerned.  Also, changing the totals row location from atop all of the data to the bottom of the data would contribute to a more organized and smooth-flowing document.  In addition, the cells that are not to be edited by the students should be locked so that no calculated values can be deleted by accident as the spreadsheet is edited.  Lastly, there should be a large text box above all of the systems for notes that may come up during the assignment that some students would like to share with the others.  They would act as small pin boards for organizational purposes.

6. The program excel sheet seemed a little plain. When assuming room type and additional cost per room the values were picked to a random extent, if we were given a normal additional cost for each room type i think the values would have been a little more realistic. When choosing additional prices, we assumed a certain amount and type of equipment within the designated room and then assigned a price to it, other rooms were based off the first assumed additional price. I feel as though our background with this type of estimation is a little shallow and a more generic choice might help, or if we at least knew what the 50,000$ that was thrown into the original program sheet was assumed for.
As can see from structural section the live loading we found was considerably less than that of the supplied program. This difference helps explain our confusion on where some of the input values came from.

7. Improvements to spreadsheet:

1. Throughout, improved layout, adjusted column widths, readability.
2. General tab, added places for coil leaving air temperature (LAT) for heating and cooling seasons.
3. Program Input tab, electrical section.  Changed W/SF to "Target W/SF" then created extra column to use the lumen method to calculate the number of fixtures needed based on three-lamp (9000 Lu) fluorescent fixtures.  Added extra column to calculate true FC that would be provided by this many fixtures, and extra column to calculate true energy consumption per SF if this many fixtures were employed.  Even though actual consumption per SF was less than the target, target was still used for calculating demand as a safety factor.
4. Program Input, HVAC tab.  Changed all load titles to be explicitly labeled "Internal" loads, since the spreadsheet as set up seemed to imply these were total loads, which is very definitely not the case.  For a building of this size in Chicago the primary loadings will be external in both winter and summer.  Changed "Total CFM" to "Total Ventilation CFM," since the CFM calculated thus only meets ventilation requirements; in fact the CFM needed to keep the space sufficiently warm is based on expected load and the LAT of the system.  This value was calculated based on the peak demand output of SAP runs.
5. Architecture Display tab.  Added pie chart for percentage gross area allocated to each space.  Added extensive comments describing program of each room.
6. HVAC Display.  Added system type, heating capacity, cooling capacity, fan size, expected distribution system, and estimated annual heating and cooling energy use.  Also added chart for internal loads as a percentage of total loads, by room.
7. Electrical Display.  Added true illuminance and fixture number calculations as described above.

8. Columns were added to the structural section for maximum spans and deflections. The plumbing section was modified to have fixtures and fixture units per room with the total fixture units for each room type. All display tabs were filled out using the example format from the Architecture display tab.