Pre-Occupancy Evaluation of High-Rise Building Forms

Abstract

The process of designing high rise buildings is demanding. In addition to being technically complex, high rise buildings must respond to the functional and psychological needs of the building users. As with other complex building types, an adequate design process suggests looking backward and forward simultaneously. Utilizing feedback from past users and projecting into the future are critical techniques when producing a successful building product. What are the psychological differences between forms generated by formula and regular forms in high rise building? How can high rise buildings forms affect its environment, and people’s attitude? What is the relationship between people’s preferences and parametric high rise building form? This research attempts to answer these questions. Nowadays, architects are using BIM (building information modeling) in designing highrise buildings, especially where BIM design tools can reduce design errors significantly. In addition, generating the forms through scripting with BIM tools is used for the form design of high rise buildings. What remain to be addressed is the psychological effects of generating high rise building forms digitally. In fact, this research can be considered as a pre-occupancy evaluation. Three groups of individuals were asked to participate in this survey. Individuals who were living in small cities, individuals who were living in big cities, but not in the downtown area, and individuals who were living in the downtown of big cities comprised the three groups. Different simulated high-rise building forms were demonstrated on the BIM Cave (a three dimensional room located in College of Architecture, Texas A&M University) for these three groups.