In my current studio project, we are working on remodeling a house in Charlottesville, VA (for confidentiality purposes of the homeowner I cannot reveal the exact location). Within the scope of our project we are only looking at design interventions on the first floor of the home. We typically work in a very iterative manner, which was important for me to consider when evaluating the particular design for this project.
I found it beneficial to first evaluate the design of the house in plan in terms of sun angle/path, wind speed/direction, ventilation, and thermal comfort.
It is important to recognize that the porch is being proposed as good solution to issues of too much solar gain in both the bedroom and kitchen due to southern sunlight.
In the following sections, I studied how the porch would function in both the winter and in the summer. In particular I studied the differences of sun angle, natural ventilation, wind direction/speed, and thermal comfort. I explored two very simple material choices that would make sense for the particular season. These ideas are easily communicated in the diagrams below:
Systems, Sites and Building ARCH 3230 