Parametric modeling representation of the territory: the investigation of solar envelope as a paramete

The sun is fundamental to all life. It is the source of our vision, our warmth, our energy, and the rhythm of our lives. Its movements inform our perceptions of time and space and our scale in the universe.The concept of solar access is an abstraction generalized from particular observations. Our cities are non-directional. Our buildings are undifferentiated by orientation to the sun. They stand static, unresponsive to the rhythms of their surroundings.
The Solar Envelope is a three dimensional envelope on a site which ensures adjacent neighbors a specified minimum direct solar access time per day throughout the year. The solar envelope was developed as a tool to give buildings in an urban setting the mutual opportunity to employ passive and active solar design strategies. The solar envelope is a way to assure urban solar access for both energy and life quality.
This study investigates the implications of a solar envelope zoning approach with respect to energy use and developable density. The results indicate that solar zoning for building has a limited, and sometimes negative, effect on energy use as well as a larger negative impact on developable density. We will show that, especially in Brazil, the solar envelopes are not used as a parameter of urban zoning and propose an assess whether the inclusion of the calculation of insolation in the master plan can be a gain in quality of life of citizens as well as a way to assist managers in making decisions about the city. We will propose a study that investigates the inclusion of the parameter of access to the Sun in the processes of urban planning and building design through a model that creates an interpretive portrait of the city according to the permissions granted to the landowners through the master plan. It was created a scenario of the landscape on the city considering building up all the maximum allowed by law. Then we carried out the calculation of insolation to assist managers in making decisions about potential zoning building that meets the city's social right and not just to the right of the owner of the land.
Parametric computeraided-design (CAD) environments significantly ease the construction and visualization of solar envelopes across whole neighborhoods, facilitating its wider use as a prescriptive zoning tool. In this work we suggest the insertion of the solar envelope in a system that goes beyond the simple draw of the building through the Building Information Modeling logic, but the insertion of this in a spatially located system, the geographic information system. The BIM is still very recent, and do not has the same maturity of the GIS, but it will be a convergence and integration of these two models, concepts and systems that will bring to the geoprocessing a new way of thinking, the GIM – Geodesign Information Management within the Parametric Modeling of Territorial Occupation.