FUSEPROJECT | Marketed product
Alea Air is a smart vent system that manages your home's airflow, moving air to the right rooms at the right time based on your temperature preferences, habits, and floor plan.
It transforms basic HVAC systems by replacing standard home registers with smart vents that track and adjust the temperature, monitor air quality, and track other environmental variables. The Alea Air platform uses machine learning and predictive analytics to dynamically allocate air to individual rooms based on users’ temperature preferences for each.
Client:
Alea Labs inc
Design iteration with parameters
I took over the project at the beginning of phase 2 when the client is satisfied with the design language we delivered in Phase 1. But the design cannot pass functional tests. For example, with the previous design, only about 30% of the surface can ventilate, and it cannot help redirect and distribute the air in different directions.
The client came up with several constraints for this round of design, 1. keep the overall triangulate pattern language and increase the ventilation area to more than 60%. 2. distribute the air into at least two directions 3. In some scenarios, the user will install the vent on the floor, and the cover should have 300 lbs load-bearing capacity.
All the design constraints are correlated. For example, thickening the wall will increase the loadbearing capacity, but it will decrease the ventilation rate; Tilting the wall will direct the airflow, but too much angle will reduce the loadbearing ability and also challenging to make the mold. In this case, iterate between parametric design and simulation tools to get the optimized parameter is the most efficient solution. I use GH_python for parametric design and Fusion 360 for simulation.
