Via dei Georgofili, Quartiere Ardeatino

Lab 6: TESTING SHADOWS

Step 1: Start a new project and localize it
Open Vasari and select  NEW METRIC to start the project.

Select MANAGE > PROJECT UNICTS: here it’s possible to change the units of measure from millimeters to meters.

Click on ANALIZE > LOCATION to specify the geographic location of the project. Vasari uses in fact an Internet mapping service to visualize the project location by searching on its street address, or the longitude and latitude of the project. This setting is useful to generate shadows for solar studies and rendered images. Also, don't forget to select the nearest weather station, with the altimetric features more similar to those of the project's site.

Finally,  IMPORT SITE IMAGE on the level one.

Step 2: Drawing the buildings

After importing the image of the project’s site, click on MODEL > CREATE MASS

and select MODEL LINE > DRAW ON WORK PLANE to draw lines on the actual work plane.

Now it’s possible to draw precisely the plan of the building directly from the site. To extrude the volume, click on MODIFY | PLACE LINES > CREATE FORM > SOLID FORM, and then set the height of the building. 

Step 3: Sun path study

It’s possible to access the sun and shadows settings in the lower panel of Vasari: by clicking on SUN PATH ON  you will activate a sun model which can be moved around the path of the sun based on your geolocation. Clicking on SHADOWS ON it’s also possible to activate shadows and see when the model is shaded or shades the sunroundings.

Step 4: Our exercise

We have focused our attention on the buildings at the intersection of Via Andrea Mantegna and Via dei Georgofili, in order to understand how much direct sunlight they receive.

In SUN SETTINGS, first we have setted the most significant moments of the year.

WINTER SOLSTICE
   
09:00                                                                                               12:00

15:00

The sun path is lower, so we can observe that during the North-West facades of all the buildings never receive direct sunlight. Also, the building that we called a is always shadowed, because of his position, in fact the building b and c cast their shadow over it for almost all the day: this looks like a problem during the coldest months of the year.

SUMMER SOLSTICE

   
09:00                                                                                               12:00

15:00                                                                                               17:00

The sun path is higher, so the South-West facades receive direct sunlight basically during the central hours of the day, which are also the hottest one.                                

AUTUMN EQUINOX

09:00                                                                                               12:00

15:00                                                                                               17:00

Here the sun path is mostly the same of the day we analyzed (20 March), comparable to the Spring Equinox, so the situations are very similar.

We’ve also made a consideration about the part of Via dei Georgofili that our buildings overlook: it is a cross street of Via Andrea Mantegna, so it’s not very large and the buildings often cast their shadows on it during the equinoxes and winter solstice. Anyway, we have observed that, during the summer solstice, the street receives direct sunlight in the central hours of the day, which are also the hottest: this might be a problem, because the high temperature of the asphalt  can seriously influence the temperature at the street level.

20 MARCH 2015

we’ve picked the date (20 March) and the different times of the analysis (09:00, 12:00, 15:00, 17:00) in order to compare the shadows in different moments of the day.

09:00                                                                                    12:00

15:00                                                                                    17:00

Then we compared the render perspective views - obtained setting a proper view with the FULL NAVIGATION WHEEL tool - with the photographic surveys taken on the selected date, in order to verify the actual correspondence.

12:00

15:0017:00

So, our study is basically focused on the three buildings on Via dei Georgofili, the two ones on the left, one of five and one of six floors, and the third one, on the right, with a bigger facade and definitely taller, with eight floors.

What we noticed is that the two buildings on the left side present some parts of the facades that, during our day of study (easily assimilable to the spring equinox), never receive direct sunlight: more precisely, the whole facades on Via Andrea Mantegna and the recessed parts of the facades of Via dei Georgofili, because of their position, in fact they are exposed to North-West.
On the other side, the South-West facades receives obviously more direct sunlight, in the speific during the central hours of the day, approximately beetween 11:00 and 16:00, until the frontal building, which is taller, casts its shadow over them. Also, the North-East facade of the taller building on the right receives direct sun only during the first few hours of the morning, so probably the apartaments that overlook here don’t have the same exposition of those one located on the South and West front. This could be an advantage during summer but also a disadvantage during the coldest period of the year.