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Step 1: Open the Project for the location that you’d like to work with
- Choose a Project from the list of available project locations. Your options include…
- Building Data (showing the heights and locations of various buildings directly around your site)
- Road data
- Topography data
- Your Building Site boundary (shown in dark red)
- When you open the Project, you may receive a warning about using an Incompatible Browser (if you are not using Google Chrome as your browser).
Note: for each project location, a Proposal Template has already been set up for you that includes:
You’ll use these Proposal Templates as the starting point for your Proposals.
Most features of Autodesk Forma will work in other browsers (for example, Safari), but for the best experience, we highly recommend that you use the Google Chrome browser.
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Step 2: Create a New Design Proposal
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Duplicate the Proposal Template to create your new Proposal
- Scroll down the list of Proposals in your project to find the Proposal named “TEMPLATE (Duplicate Me)”.
- Click the three dot menu, and choose Duplicate to create your new Proposal.
- Select your new Proposal and click the three dot menu, then choose Rename.
- Rename your proposal using a unique name using this form:
- LastName_FirstName_Proposal# — for example, Katz_Glenn_Proposal1
The list of Proposals is sorted by creation date, so
TEMPLATE (Duplicate Me) is near the bottom of the list.
DO NOT edit or rename the TEMPLATE (Copy Only) Proposal. This is the shared starting point for every student’s proposals.
Your new Proposal will be created at the top of the list.
It’s important to include your name in your Proposal names to make them easy to select. The list of Proposals will grow very long as many students complete the assignment.
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Open your new Proposal and edit it by add new Building Forms
- Select your new Proposal in the list.
- Site Limits
- Terrain
- Buildings
- Roads
- You will be creating your conceptual building form within the Building Site.
- You will then be running analysis on the entire Site Context in order to understand how your building will perform in the context of other buildings.
The features of your Proposal will be displayed in the drawing area, including elements copied from the Template project:
A Building Site (the location for your new buildings) and Site Context (the zone around your building site that should be included in the analyses) have also been set up for you in the Template project.
Site Context vs. Building Site
A Building Site (the location for your new buildings) and Site Context (the area around your building site that will included in the analyses) have also been set up for you in the Template project.
This image shows the Building Site and Site Context that have been set up in the Phoenix Project Template.
- Draw your first building form on the Building Site (area indicated by darker red) using Forma’s Building Tools.
Be sure to view the Module videos for tips on creating your building forms:
6.2.B.1 Creating Building Forms using Forma’s Basic Design Modeling Tools
6.2.B.2 Creating Building Forms using the 3D Sketch Modeling Tool
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Analyze your Proposed Design using 2 of the Analyses available
- Choose the Analysis that you’d like to run from the options available in Forma’s Analyze Palette.
- Confirm that the Site Context is set up properly.
- Click the Selection button in the Analyze palette and make sure that the “Site Context” area is highlighted in blue.
- Close the Select Analysis Areas dialog (using the X button) to return to the Analyze palette.
- Choose 2 of the following Analysis Types to perform from the options available in the Analyze palette:
- Sun Hours
- Run an analysis for four different dates (March 21, June 21, September 21, and December 21).
- View the analysis results for each of the dates.
- Observe where sun is hitting the surface and where you are shading neighboring buildings. You will be using this information to help decide on your preferred building form.
- Close the sun hours analysis by clicking the back button in the top left corner of the window.
- Daylight Potential
- Run an analysis.
- View the analysis results for each of the dates.
- Observe
- Close the analysis by clicking the back button in the top left corner of the window.
- Wind
- Microclimate
- Operational Energy
- Noise
- Solar Energy
Each of the buttons opens a lower pane in the Analyze Palette where you can set up the analysis or view the results.
If the site context is selected properly, the area and surrounding buildings will be highlighted in blue.
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Review the Results for Each Analysis of this Design Proposal
- After each analysis is completed, click the Open Analysis button to view the results of your analysis for this Design Option.
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Repeat Step 2 to create second design proposal analyzing different potential building forms for the same project site.
- Duplicate your Proposal created for Step 4.
- Rename the duplicate Proposal using “_Proposal2”.
- Create a new building building form.
- Analyze your new design.
- Run the same (2) analyses that you used for your first proposal — so, you’ll be able to compare the results of the analyses performed on each of the proposals.
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Step 3: Compare Your Proposals
- Use Forma's Compare tool to view the results of the analyses performed on each proposal side-by-side.
- Open the Compare tool located at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- Select one of your Proposals from the list displayed in the Compare tool.
- Then, select one of the Analyses that you have performed on that Proposal.
- Repeat these steps to display comparable analyses for each of your two Proposals side-by-side in the comparison viewing area.
You can review the steps for setting up a side-by-side comparison of your design proposals here:
6.2.C.9 Analyzing and Comparing Design Options
The analysis results will be displayed in the comparison viewing area.
You can hover over the right edge of the panes in the comparison viewing area to display a left arrow button that opens an Options panel to adjust any assumptions and tweak the analysis (e.g., change the date of the analysis period).
To close the Options panel, click the right arrow button that appears when hovering over the left edge of the panel.
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Step 4: Post the Comparison of Your Analysis Results
- Save a screenshot showing the side-by-side comparison of the analysis results and paste this screenshot into an email message to the Course Assistant.
- Your email message should include the images of the side-by-side comparisons of at least 2 of the analyses you performed on your Proposals (at least 2 screenshots).