Bryant Park was selected as the testing site to evaluate how surrounding urban form influences solar access at the block and surface level. For each subdivided surface block within the park, total annual solar radiation was calculated while treating adjacent buildings as fixed obstructions that cast shadows throughout the day and across seasons. This setup isolates the geometric impact of the built context, allowing sunlight distribution to be understood primarily as a function of building height, orientation, and street alignment rather than material or vegetation effects.

Input 1: Target Surface
Input 2: Obstruction Building Geometry
Input 3: NYC Sun Path Data

Surface-level solar radiation was simulated with surrounding buildings treated as obstructions, showing reduced sunlight on the south and west sides and greater exposure toward the central north. Real conditions vary due to trees and smaller structures not captured in the model.

Another trade-off point during the process if result precision vs computational capacity. For every half the square size, the computational capacity quadruples. The computational capacity and time of the last image is 64 times the first image (4 x 4 x 4).

Grasshopper Analysis result:
Average Daylight Hours: 6.4978
Average % of Day with Daylight: 59.0705%
% Above Minimum Daylight Hours: 98.1819%