B4 -DaCostaXimenes - Underground Intelligent Building

Hello Everyone,

Bach Tran and I, Marino da Costa, came up with an idea to design an Underground Intelligent Building. We got our ideas from looking at the insanity of the competition for constructing the tallest building in world. We thought that it is a little bit unreasonable to build taller and taller and it can possible put people’s lives at risk.  According to the figure 1, up to 39% of the structure is non-occupiable. This means besides there are so much waste in materials, human labor, and money, these buildings also raise safety concern for the surrounding buildings and people. Therefore, we thought it was a good idea to do our research on underground buildings. In this project we are going to do our research on existing underground shelters and their issues or concerns. After identifying and learning about underground structures as well as design, we are going to integrate the intelligent aspects into our design.  The major challenges that we might face are the design the structure resistant to earth movement, selecting materials, MEP design, and the HVAC for underground construction. Some of the potential advantages of underground intelligent buildings are elimination of wind load concern, lessen the effect to natural environment, reduction of life risk for occupants compare to skyscrapers.   

Figure 1. World's ten tallest Vanity Heights (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban habitat)

Source of the figure: http://www.ctbuh.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=k%2BK%2FgAvA7YU%3D&tabid=5837&language=en-US

Hi Cody,

I like your topic project about 3D Laser Scanning and I am very interested to learn more what you and brad are going to find in this research. I personally didn’t think that it was possible to 3D scanning the existing building model with drone because I haven’t seen anything like it in the real world. Your topic interests me to learn more about 3D laser scanning. What do you think will be the major challenges for your project? 

Hi Maita,

I think intelligent vs. Green is an interesting project since you and Dee Dee will focus more in the design and technology differences. I am curious to know about your goals of this project and what are you hoping to learn? I think you guys should also do your research on the advantages and disadvantages of intelligent buildings vs. green buildings. This also will become a good lesson for AE students to learn.  

Hi Zac and Odirizzi,

I appreciate you guys sharing your Revit model on this blog. I personally love using revit and always want to learn more. I feel like I am going to learn a lot from you guys about revit via this project. You design looks great and I cannot wait for your final results of your design. Are you guys going to do lighting design using Revit as well? I see your Revit model you guys combined the bricks and glass into your design model and I want to know what are the reasons behind it?