· SOLAR CANOPY APP ·

SOLAR CANOPY APP is an experimental shading device configurator that allows to populate infinite structures of revolution with panels, by designating their quantity, size and vertical angle.

After following an iterative process that covers a Grasshopper script definition deployed as a Heroku application based on a Github repository, the user can play with different sliders to create a myriad of designs that are lately available for download as 3dm files (Rhinoceros).


The first group of sliders allows the user the control of the geometry; to set the number of segments of the geometry section; the radius of the shape at its bottom, middle and top part; as well as the height of the middle and top curve.


Even though this first set of controls provides enough possibilities to make the app non-repetitive and architecturally interesting, the second set of sliders gives the user the control over the panel design and its distribution.


Depending on their height above the canopy, four types of panels are generated, whose size and vertical angle can be redefined to ensure the most suitable skin protection system for each case study. Finally, a reduction factor can be applied to randomly decrease the number of panels on the geometry.

On the right side of the screen, a floating container constantly updates the results of the user’s choices. Thus, the data output shows the number, area and angle of each type of panel, in addition to the total number of elements and overall area of the shading system.

LINK
solar canopy (bimsc22-appcanopy.herokuapp.com)

CREDITS
Solar Canopy APP is a project of IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, developed at Master in Advanced Computation for Architecture & Design (MaCAD) in 2021/22 by:
Student: Lucía Leva Fuentes
Faculty: David Andrés León and Hesham Shawqy