Winner: Architecture

Mbaabu Stephen and Victor Basweti

Metro13 Team - University of Nairobi, Kenya

 

The brief required of us to develop a building and adjacent bus loading zones to provide safe and efficient transportation, retail shopping, and bus maintenance.

This meant putting into consideration a number of factors such as the site locatio, users, the traffic flow, climate among others.

Also the fact sustainability issues were considered in the pre design phase was essential to the resolution of the final design proposal. The use of Autodesk Revit to analyze building performance made it  possible to modify the building accordingly. To meet the set design goals.

 

Like any other design problem, we used the 6 step approach to come up with a design solution that is implementable.We started by trying to understand the problem/design challenge, that was presented to us( which was the design of a metro bus transit centre).the brief required we design a metrobus transit centre using the jo’burg site.

 

However,we decided to choose a different location from the one provided.The motivation being the fact that,coincidentally the city of nairobi has,for a long time now, acknowledged the need for a new metro bus transit centre and the fact that we are participating in this competition has given us the timely opportunity to showcase exactly what sort of design solution we can come up with.

 

After the research the team engaged in the analysis of the site and brief to further understand the issues and coming up with the necessary solutions within the parameters of the brief & site. With this understanding we were able to come up with a conceptual building model which we analysed to test if it meet the requirements of the brief i.e. safe,functional,economical,aesthetic and environmentally sustainable. This is where Autodesk Revit BIM technology enabled us to integrate & streamline the design process making it more efficient and effective to do the necessary analysis. For instance from the Revit model we have been able to produce all the necessary drawings, perform building performance analysis, bioclimatic analysis, renders, walkthroughs…etc. to the desired quality, speed & economy.