Design challenge

A high school gymnasium is the selected engineering product. The gymnasium is expected to host sporting events, namely basketball and volleyball. And with these events comes spectators. The seating capacity of a gymnasium to accommodate these spectators is the main idea behind the parametric modeling. Providing the desired seating capacity while reducing material consumption will be the main design challenge.

The following parameters are used to configure the parametric model:

• Court dimension (W x L)
• Court clearance: At ends and sides
• Exterior and interior walls height
• Wall thickness
• Floor thickness
• Door height and width
• Number of seat clusters
• Number of rows per seat cluster
• Number of seats per row
• Seat cluster width
• Seat row width and height

The parameters related with seats will be used to determine seating capacity. Parameters related with the court, its clearance, and seating cluster are used to determine the dimension of the main hall of the gymnasium. The parameters related with floor, walls, and seats are used to estimate the material consumption of the design.

High performance criteria and related parameters

Two high performance criteria are identified for the parametric modeling. They are seating capacity and material quantity.

Seating Capacity: The gymnasium should be able to provide seats for the desired amount of people. The seating capacity is related to the following parameters.

• Number of seat clusters
• Number of rows per seat cluster
• Number of seats per row
• Hight of a seating row
• Width of a seating row
• Ceiling Hight of the main hall

Material quantity: The modeling process should consider the amount of material consumed because of different decisions. The material quantity is related to the following parameters:

• Number of seats (Number of chairs to be installed. However, the supporting system is not considered)
• Wall height and thickness (To calculate wall volume. The openings are deducted from the total value)
• The total surface area of the main hall that is the court, court clearance and the seating area in addition to the other rooms of the gymnasium.

Creation of the parametric model

The parameter model creation begins by defining the court dimension parameters. Then the side and end clearance around the court will be specified. The user can choose to increase the clearances beyond the given minimum values. That may be necessary to incorporate facilities between the seating area and the court (such as team and coach seating areas and score keeper table). After the court clearance, comes the seat clusters. The number of clusters can be either 2 clusters on one side of the court or 2 clusters on both sides of the court (4 in total) like shown on Figure 1. The selected configuration will have a significant effect on the seating capacity of the gymnasium (the high-performance criteria). The user chooses between these configurations through a Boolean node (‘true’ for 4 seat clusters and ‘false’ for 2 clusters). Next, the number of rows on a single cluster will be specified using an integer slider. The number of rows also have a significant effect on seating capacity. Each row has a predetermined width of 8.3 meters. Out of that 0.8m is left out for passageway. Using the remining 7.5 m and an assumed single seat width of 0.5m, we can determine that each row has the capacity to support 15 seats.

 

By multiplying the capacity of a row, the number of rows per seat cluster and the number of seat clusters, we can find the seating capacity of the gymnasium. A ‘Watch’ node was added to dynamo to display this seating capacity. Hence, whenever a user changes the number of rows or seat clusters, they can see the resulting seating capacity in real time.

By multiplying the width of each row (predefined as 0.65m) with the number of rows, the width of the seating clusters can be determined. We have previously determined the court dimensions and the court clearance. Hence, we now have the dimension of all areas in the main hall of the gymnasium and, thus, the dimension of the main hall. The rest of the rooms in the gymnasium (locker rooms, restrooms, storage area, etc.) are given predefined dimensions.

The floor is modeled by using the parametrically determined dimension of the main hall and the predetermined dimension of the other rooms. The user can manipulate the floor thickness through a number slider. Both basketball and volleyball are accommodated on the court, therefore, lines for both sports are drawn on the floor. The lines are determined by the court dimension given as input by the user.

Exterior walls were modeled by following the floor element’s edges. Thus, the length of these walls is controlled by the main hall’s dimension through the floor. Additionally, the location of the wall located opposite to the main entrance is determined by the number of seat clusters chosen. If additional seat cluster is to be placed on this side, the exterior wall together with the floor will be pushed outward by a length that is equal to the seat cluster width. The exterior wall’s height (which is also the ceiling height) is specified by the user. However, the input is restricted by the height of the seat cluster. A script is used in dynamo to check and verify that the exterior wall height is always at least 2.5 meters higher than the top of the seat clusters. Similarly, the user can specify the height of interior walls. However, the interior walls are checked only not to exceed the ceiling height. Several doors, including the main entrance are modeled with the walls. Users can provide door height and width using number sliders. Wall paddings (for safety) are added to the walls at both ends of the court using predefined values.

The roof is not be model in dynamo to allow a better visibility of the different components and detail of the gymnasium’s inside.

Finally, the second-high performance criteria that is material quantity needs to be addressed. For this purpose, the surface area of the floor, the volume of all walls and the number of chairs to be installed is computed and compiled. Each of these are computed using a dynamo script. And finally, the result of these computations is presented in watch nodes. The main challenge of the designer will be to balance between the two high performance criteria. To provide sufficient seating capacity without consuming too much resources.

Design Options

Design Option One

The first option is to design the gymnasium for the minimum seating capacity for a gymnasium which is 200 seats. To this end two seat cluster with 7 rows are provided. Since each row support 15 seats, we will have 105 seats per cluster (210 seating capacity overall). In this configuration, the height of the seat cluster become 3.15m. Adding some head room will make the ceiling height 6m. However, the minimum ceiling height for a gymnasium should be 7.32m and that will be used on this design. All the exterior walls and the walls adjacent to the seating cluster will have 7.32m height. The partition walls for the rest of the gymnasium rooms can be set at a value that does not excide 7.32m. They are 4m high for this design. All the walls and floors are 0.2m thick

Design Option Two

This design option will aim for a spectator capacity of about 800 peoples. Four seating clusters, each with 14 rows are provided. By this configuration, we can have 210 seats per cluster and 840 seats overall. The height of the seat cluster become 6.3m. Adding some head room will make the ceiling height 8.8m. All the exterior walls and walls adjacent to the court will have 8.8m height. The partition walls will be 4m high. All the walls and the floor are 0.2m thick.

Design Option Three

The third option will be a compromise between the previous two options. On this option, only two seating clusters by one side of the court will be provided like option one. This will save a significant amount of surface area. However, fourteen number of rows per a seat cluster will be used same as design option two. This way, the option will have a seating capacity of 420 people. This is double the capacity of design option one with small increase in surface area. The height of the walls is left similar with option two. All the walls and the floor are 0.2m thick.

Preview of Parametric Model

By using nodes from a dynamo package called  ‘MeshToolkit’ , the model in dynamo was exported into a .dae format. Then this file was uploaded to sketchfab. The resulting 3D representation is presented below.