| dc.description.abstract | The building industry is a growing industry, and it is expected to be expanding further in the near future. In the design, production and construction of new projects, the conceptual design is clearly the most creative design stage in the entire process. It is essential that in the conceptual stage, the architect and the engineer can predict the feasibility of their design. That is, in addition to the creative process of the conceptual stage, it should be conducted parallel inquiries to increase the understanding of other consequential outcomes. These outcomes can be of different categories, such as economical, structural, productional, reliability, environmental, and many more. For instance, when using optimization tools in the conceptual design with task-specific cost functions, consequences for other topics in the building process should also be considered in parallel. To develop the conceptual stage further, the structural engineer should be asked to take a more prominent role and be permitted to assist in the design of a common single digital platform. These changes will inevitably open for new considerations of the methodology used in building design. That is, how to apply the structural engineering knowledge in the conceptual stage, as well as the methods of design applicable to parametric modelling and algorithms-aided design, which will be of key importance to the future development of communities around the world.
The algorithms-aided design can be called the generalized parametric design. It allows controlling the parameters of the structure by algorithms. The growing popularity of algorithms-aided design is because of the open-source character, which allows for the customization of design methods. Additionally, the algorithms-aided design allows merging design methods from many disciplines (such as: architecture, structural engineering, fabrication) as one universal system. Despite these advantages, there are only a few projects through history in which algorithms-aided design where used in every stage of the building process.
This thesis considers algorithms-aided design as the design environment in which structural engineering can be applied without losing the design freedom and creativity in the conceptual stage. This thesis proposes a common design methodology and drafts the importance of the methodology by presenting several cases in which this is applied. The case studies are mostly timber structures and show the inclusion of design methods adjusted to the structural analysis and fabrication of timber elements. It is concluded that the conceptual stage can be much more precise if it will be established in an algorithmsaided design environment, thanks to the use of appropriate design methods and methodology. The design methods are here expressed in the plugin contributions written (and several shared online) using C# for the specific algorithms-aided design software Grasshopper.
The main algorithms in the plugin Reindeer, which is a primary outcome of this thesis, is described in detail regarding its implementation and practical use. Especially are issues concerning the explanation of the search algorithm, which allows to quickly connect the global analysis of the structure with the local analysis. The local analysis is understood as the structural analysis of details, like joints or supports. This process of connecting details with the global digital model is recognized to be the bottleneck of the design process used today. Therefore will automated systems bring increased flexibility and improved computational time, introducing new quality to conceptual design.
A general framework for establishing and using structural engineering in the conceptual phase is presented. The framework is used to develop fast, flexible, and robust design methods and methodologies in an algorithms-aided environment. | en_US |
