Computer-aided exploration of architectural design spaces: a digital sketchbook

Het ontwerpproces van architecten vormt vaak geen lineair pad van ontwerpopgave tot eindresultaat, maar wordt veeleer gekenmerkt door exploratie of het doorzoeken van meerdere alternatieven in een (conceptuele) ontwerpruimte. Dit proces wordt in de praktijk vaak ondersteund door manueel schetsen, waarbij de ontwerpers schetsboek kan gelezen worden als een reeks exploraties. Dit soort interactie met de ontwerpruimte wordt in veel mindere mate ondersteund door hedendaagse computerondersteunde ontwerpsystemen. De metafoor van een digitaal schetsboek, waarbij menselijke exploratie wordt versterkt door de (reken)kracht van een computer, is het centrale onderzoeksthema van dit proefschrift. Hoewel het opzet van een ontwerpruimte op het eerste gezicht schatplichtig lijkt aan het onderzoeksveld van de artificiële intelligentie (AI), wordt het ontwerpen hier ruimer geïnterpreteerd dan het oplossen van problemen. Als onderzoeksmethodologie worden vormengrammatica’s ingezet, die enerzijds nauw aanleunen bij de AI en een formeel raamwerk bieden voor de exploratie van ontwerpruimtes, maar tegelijkertijd ook weerstand bieden tegen de AI en een vorm van visueel denken en ambiguïteit toelaten. De twee bijhorende onderzoeksvragen zijn hoe deze vormengrammatica’s digitaal kunnen worden gerepresenteerd, en op welke manier de ontwerper-computer interactie kan gebeuren. De resultaten van deze twee onderzoeksvragen vormen de basis van een nieuw hulpmiddel voor architecten: het digitaal schetsboek

A multi-agent system in education facility design

This paper deals with a multi-agent system which supports the designer in solving complex design tasks. The behaviour of design agents is modelled by sets of grammar rules. Each agent uses a graph grammar or a shape grammar and a database of facts concerning the subtask it is responsible for. The course of the design process is determined by the interaction between specialised agents. Space layouts of designs are represented by attributed graphs encoding both topological structures and semantic properties of solutions. The agents work in parallel on the common graph, independently generating layouts of different design components while specified node labels evoke agents using shape grammars. The agents’ cooperation allows them to combine a form-oriented approach with a functional-structural one in the design process, where the agents generate the general 3D form of the object based on design requirements together with the space layout based on the functional aspects of the solution. Based on the given design criteria, the agents search for admissible solutions within the design space that constitutes their operating environment. The proposed approach is illustrated by the example of designing kindergarten facilities

Microbial Similarity between Students in a Common Dormitory Environment Reveals the Forensic Potential of Individual Microbial Signatures.

The microbiota of the built environment is an amalgamation of both human and environmental sources. While human sources have been examined within single-family households or in public environments, it is unclear what effect a large number of cohabitating people have on the microbial communities of their shared environment. We sampled the public and private spaces of a college dormitory, disentangling individual microbial signatures and their impact on the microbiota of common spaces. We compared multiple methods for marker gene sequence clustering and found that minimum entropy decomposition (MED) was best able to distinguish between the microbial signatures of different individuals and was able to uncover more discriminative taxa across all taxonomic groups. Further, weighted UniFrac- and random forest-based graph analyses uncovered two distinct spheres of hand- or shoe-associated samples. Using graph-based clustering, we identified spheres of interaction and found that connection between these clusters was enriched for hands, implicating them as a primary means of transmission. In contrast, shoe-associated samples were found to be freely interacting, with individual shoes more connected to each other than to the floors they interact with. Individual interactions were highly dynamic, with groups of samples originating from individuals clustering freely with samples from other individuals, while all floor and shoe samples consistently clustered together.IMPORTANCE Humans leave behind a microbial trail, regardless of intention. This may allow for the identification of individuals based on the "microbial signatures" they shed in built environments. In a shared living environment, these trails intersect, and through interaction with common surfaces may become homogenized, potentially confounding our ability to link individuals to their associated microbiota. We sought to understand the factors that influence the mixing of individual signatures and how best to process sequencing data to best tease apart these signatures

A transformation grammar-based methodology for housing rehabilitation: meeting contemporary functional and ICT requirements

This research starts from the premise that the future of the real estate market in Portugal will require the rehabilitation of existing residential areas in order to respond to new life-styles and dwelling requirements that have emerged in an era in which information plays a structuring role in society. The goal of this research is the definition of design guidelines and a rehabilitation methodology to support architects involved in the process of adapting existing dwellings, allowing them to balance sustainability requirements and economic feasibility with new dwelling trends such as the incorporation and updating of Information Communication and Automation Technologies and the need to solve emerging conflicts affecting the use of space prompted by the introduction of new functions associated with such technologies. In addition to defining a general methodology applicable to all the building types, the study focuses on a specific type, called “rabo-de-bacalhau” (“cod-tail”), built in Lisbon between 1945 and 1965 for which a specifc methodology has been generated. Both shape grammar and space syntax were used as part of the rehabilitation methodology as tools to identify and encode the principles and rules behind the adaptation of existing houses to new requirements.FCT PhD Gran

Inferring a shape grammar: translating designer's knowledge

This article focuses on a shape grammar that was developed to enable the adaptation of existing houses – “rabo-de-bacalhau” housing style - to new requirements and most particular on the process of inference of the grammar. Along the article we describe the process undertaken to develop the grammar and what the achievements of the transformation grammar are regarding the possibilities of a mass customization of dwelling’s rehabilitation work. The goal of this article is to describe and discuss how the designer’s knowledge was encoded into shape rules. The process used to extract the architect’s knowledge and to incorporate it into the transformation grammar enable to abstract the designer’s actions and to define a sequence of actions that can define a possible strategy of design. The proposed design methodology generates dwelling layouts that are legal since they follow the grammar language and adequate since they meet the a priori user and design requirements.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio