Project 2- Stage 1 Site Analysis and Pre-schematic Design AENG 321 Dr. Ahmed Sherif

Group 8: Aya Fayez

Amira Abdel-Rahman

Hadeer Atef

Salma Samir

Sarah Mokhtar

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Branding and Concept:

The products that we decided to display in our showroom are BMW cars. The showroom that we

intend to design will embrace BMW’s main themes, characteristics and slogans. The current

BMW theme revolves around the idea of driving pleasure, dynamics, efficiency and joy. BMW

cars are characterized by smooth edges, and planar shapes rather than rectilinear shapes and

sharp edges. This shaped our concept of design which is about “And not Or” and “Dynamics and

Efficiency”, from which we got the inspiration from a video on the BMW official website:

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficientdynamics/phase_1/introduction.html

Our design would thus accommodate for aesthetics in line with efficiency and functionality. The

shape was then inspired by that concept. The dashboard of the BMW car evolved to be,

according to us, the link with “And not Or”, “Dynamics and Efficiency” because this element of

the car includes both the speed indicator which symbolizes dynamics while the fuel quantity

indicator which symbolizes efficiency.

Fig. 1

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The shape:

Fig .2

Fig .3: Sources of Inspiration

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2

1

3

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The structure is divided into two buildings: an office building and the showroom building for

functionality and to give privacy and confidentiality to the employees. However they are still

connected by the patio and the steel structure.

1- This building is mostly made of glass. It is the

showroom part (public part of the project).

2- This building will be mostly made of steel.

However there will be a lot of windows to

provide natural lighting. This is the office

building. The left part of the building will be the

maintenance area and there will be a special

entrance for the cars whether to the office

building or the showroom building. The middle

part will be for the employees. It will contain

many windows overlooking the car showroom so

they won't feel isolated from the main function

of the building. The right part is the lecture hall

and training center. It will have a special

entrance for the visitors and from the exterior it

will have the BMW logo (fig. 6).

3- The space between the two buildings will be

used as an open air patio, which will be a waiting

and resting area for both clients and employees as

it is in a strategic place between the office

building and the showroom building. There will

be shading devices at the top accompanied with

sitting areas and greenery. The fact that this area

is opened from the two sides will generate natural

and cross ventilation.

4- The two buildings are connected by this steel

structure. However, it isn't just for an aesthetic

purpose but it is also to shade the south east area

where the sun is mostly directed. Moreover it will

be like a landmark for the building for clients to remember and recognize it. It is inspired

from the steel structure in front of the new Air and Space Museum in Washington Dulles

(fig. 3).

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

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Site Analysis

Location:

We decided to choose a site on

a highway, in a lightly

populated area with low traffic

for our car showroom. The

reason for that is that we want

the customer to appreciate and

value the displayed product

away from the noise, pollution

and the traffic in downtown but

at the same time, it should have

dynamism and the highway gives

that effect.

The site is located in New Cairo, overlooking two

major streets; the 90 Road and the Ring Road.

These two roads are highly important in that area

and have relatively high traffic compared to the

rest of the neighborhood. To reach the site from

downtown, the customer will take about one hour

and from Heliopolis about 40 minutes in a

moderate traffic. It's exactly at the beginning of the

90 Road and its intersection with the Ring Road.

Therefore, the site is easily accessed and the

Fig. 7

Fig. 9

Fig. 8

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entrance to the showroom will be on the 90 Road.

Neighborhood Context:

The 90 Road has become a

major industrial and

commercial area over the past

couple of years. So there are

many companies, malls and

showrooms on that road. In

regards to competitions,

there’s a car showroom that’s

located on the 90 Road that’s

about 756.2 meters from the

site but it hasn’t opened yet.

Another possible competition

is the Honda showroom on

the circular road; it’s at a

distance of 1767.3 meters from the site and the Toyota showroom located just a few

meters away from the Honda sales place (fig 10). The rest of the surroundings are a

mixture of residential units and compounds besides some companies, which will work to

our benefit on the long run. Since the owners or the employees of these areas are possible

clients of the project.

.

Reason why the building is located in this

site in particular:

BMW is a high class product so it fits

with the environment the fifth

settlement.

It is one of a kind showroom (hybrid

and concept cars), the first showroom

of this kind so it has to be in a perfect

place in order to market for this new

product.

The position the building makes

efficient use of the intersection.

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

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Size:

With a width of 270 meters and 580 meters of length, the approximate area is

1566 meter squared. However, we will only use the red marked area as shown in figure

12. Its width is approximately 175 m and length is 200 m. That size of an area would be

needed to build a car showroom which by nature accommodates such relatively big

products which need a big outdoor and indoor display areas and an even bigger services,

preparation, maintenance area and landscape.

Fig. 12

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Topography:

This following table illustrates the slopes and elevations of the land. The numbers show

multiple elevations of the land (from sea surface in meters) and they are taken for intervals of

approximately 25 meters.

The first row is the elevation of the 90th road, and the first column is the elevation of the Ring

road:

245 246 247 246 247 247 247 247 247

246 248 248 248 248 248 248

247 248 248 248 248 248 248 249

247 250 250 249 249 249 249 249 250

246 250 250 250 250 250 250 250 251

246 250 250 250 251 251 251 251 252

245 249 250 251 251 251 251 252 252

245 249 250 252 252 252 253 252 253

As one can notice from the arrows, the land is generally sloped downwards (2%) towards

the North West.

Moreover, the land is generally higher than the roads as there is a difference 1 meter

between the land and the 90th road elevation and a difference of 4 meters between the

land level and the ring road. This must be taken into consideration concerning the

visibility of the showroom in relation to the eye level of the customers riding their cars.

N

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Fig. 13: Geotechnical Analysis Using GIS (Geographical Information System)

As seen in figure 13, the land is composed of "limestone, clastic and gypsum".

This limestone is strong and could support stresses.

However, this soil has to be dealt with special care as it won't support any leakage.

Therefore, while building, weathered and fragmented rocks shouldn't be used and it is

preferred to use fresh rocks.

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Fig. 14: Hydrogeological Analysis Using GIS

From the figure 14, in the project site there is "local and low to moderate productive

aquifer, and insignificant surface recharge".

This means that there is no harm of groundwater when building basements and

underground parking.

However, there will be no source of groundwater supply and irrigation, so other sources

of water supply have to be used.

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Climate:

Fig. 15

The weather is generally warm all year around and the temperature could reach a maximu m of

40 degrees Celsius in summer. In addition to that, the sunrays hit the site directly as there are no

close buildings creating any kind of shading. The direction of the sunrays is Northern East. The

wind is directed towards the west.

Training Center

There are many things that should be taken into account regarding that part of the project. The

training centre, in a car showroom practically, should be generally into two parts; a part of the

employees and another part for the technicians. The employees’ part should include meeting

rooms, offices as well as small training areas. As for the technicians’ part it should include a

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workshop and some small training rooms as well. The employees’ area will be given a white

code and the technicians’ part will be given a blue code.

A fairly sized lecture hall of approximate size of 200 seats will also be needed in case of a

general gathering or a lecture that is required to be given to a large number of people. The lecture

hall will be located in a strategic place such that both technicians and employees have

convincing access to it from their working spaces and also it will have a direct access from the

outside not located in the depth of the showroom, in order that if a lecturer will come from

outside, he won’t go all the way inside the showroom.