In
this blog I’m going to share with you what my thesis topic is, why I chose it,
and the information I gathered from my site visit last week. I chose to design a Gold LEED certified
assisted living facility in Nashville, Illinois. My thesis topic will also focus on the psychological
well-being of the residents at this facility. This will be done by looking at acoustics, lighting, and the
natural environment.
The
reason I chose to do an assisted living facility was actually based on the
choice of my site. Deciding upon a
thesis topic in the fall semester was very stressful. It was hard to decide on a topic knowing that you would have
to spend three full semesters researching it. At that time I was working at Eggemeyer Architects in
Carbondale. My co-workers told me
several topics, but the only one that interested me was an assisted living
facility. Once I was heavily set on doing an
assisted living facility for my thesis, it was time to choose a site.
Growing
up in Southern Illinois, I wanted my site to be local. I knew that my home town didn’t have an
assisted living facility, so I looked there first. I called my former boss at DBG Construction in Nashville,
Illinois for advice. It turns out
that he knew of a site that was actually a proposed site for an assisted living
facility. The site currently
contains four duplex’s intended for retired couples. The plan was to build an assisted living facility on the
same site, but building plans were never developed. There is approximately a 188,000 square foot lot on the site
I chose for my thesis, and my building program is currently 62,000 square feet
excluding outdoor spaces (parking, courtyard, overhead entrance).
When
I visited the site I noticed the topography wasn’t the best to work with. I decided to survey the site with a
laser level, and with that information I could easily model it on computer and
work with it from there. It only
took an hour and a half to survey 126 points on the site. With that information I created a point
cloud (XYZ coordinate system) to import into Civil 3D Cad. This created a three-dimensional mesh
that I can use to find any elevation on the site. The next step is to create the entire site (streets,
buildings, trees, etc.) so I can perform sun studies and also place building
concepts on the topography.
The image below
shows the contours on top of the existing site. (Click image to enlarge)
The image below
shows the different levels on the site (Red =
lowest, Purple = highest)
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