Digital design, optimisation and manufacturing of architectural components

Abstract

Design projects of building components frequently embody a trade-off between multiple and interdependent requirements such as performance related aspects, form freedom and complexity of the desired architectural expressions. Conflicting boundary conditions, conventional materials and technologies most often compromise the realisation of optimised design and its underlying concepts. A model of a unifying software construct will be presented that can iteratively optimise a design towards its initial functional requirements using readily available design, simulation and user-interfacing tools. This approach will allow complex quantitative and qualitative requirement integration right in the fuzzy front end of conceptual development, functioning as a design explorer essential to support design intent. This will be achieved through the combination of processes including form finding, form generation, performance analysis, emergence, optimization, evaluation, and rapid prototyping. Applying this approach, architects and designers can conceive interactively, test the consequences of actions almost immediately, and explore different ways of solution refinements that are crucial in design processes of architectural components with a high degree of form freedom and system complexity.