Evolution of architectural floor plans

Layout planning is a process of sizing and placing rooms (e.g. in a house) while a t t empt ing to optimize various criteria. Often the r e are conflicting c r i t e r i a such as construction cost, minimizing the distance between r e l a t ed activities, and meeting the area requirements for these activities. The process of layout planning ha s mostly been done by hand, wi th a handful of a t t empt s to automa t e the process. Thi s thesis explores some of these pa s t a t t empt s and describes several new techniques for automa t ing the layout planning process using evolutionary computation. These techniques a r e inspired by the existing methods, while adding some of the i r own innovations. Additional experimenLs are done to t e s t the possibility of allowing polygonal exteriors wi th rectilinear interior walls. Several multi-objective approaches are used to evaluate and compare fitness. The evolutionary r epr e s ent a t ion and requirements specification used provide great flexibility in problem scope and depth and is worthy of considering in future layout and design a t t empt s . The system outlined in thi s thesis is capable of evolving a variety of floor plans conforming to functional and geometric specifications. Many of the resulting plans look reasonable even when compared to a professional floor plan. Additionally polygonal and multi-floor buildings were also generated

Carter, Fred (FA 1096)

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 1096. Paper titled “‘Uncle Davie Mears’ Saddlebag House” in which Fred Carter discusses the evolution of architectural design as it relates to the Mear House, a long-standing cabin located in Summersville, Kentucky. Paper is based on information collected by Carter from current and former residents. Paper also includes color photographs and hand-drawn floor plans of the home

Emerging cad and bim trends in the aec education: An analysis from students\u27 perspective

As the construction industry is moving towards collaborative design and construction practices globally, training the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) students professionally related to CAD and BIM became a necessity rather than an option. The advancement in the industry has led to collaborative modelling environments, such as building information modelling (BIM), as an alternative to computer-aided design (CAD) drafting. Educators have shown interest in integrating BIM into the AEC curriculum, where teaching CAD and BIM simultaneously became a challenge due to the differences of two systems. One of the major challenges was to find the appropriate teaching techniques, as educators were unaware of the AEC students’ learning path in CAD and BIM. In order to make sure students learn and benefit from both CAD and BIM, the learning path should be revealed from students’ perspective. This paper summarizes the background and differences of CAD and BIM education, and how the transition from CAD to BIM can be achieved for collaborative working practices. The analysis was performed on freshman and junior level courses to learn the perception of students about CAD and BIM education. A dual-track survey was used to collect responses from AEC students in four consecutive years. The results showed that students prefer BIM to CAD in terms of the friendliness of the user-interface, help functions, and self-detection of mistakes. The survey also revealed that most of the students believed in the need for a BIM specialty course with Construction Management (CM), Structure, and Mechanical-Electrical-Plumbing (MEP) areas. The benefits and challenges of both CAD and BIM-based software from students’ perspectives helps to improve the learning outcomes of CAD/BIM courses to better help students in their learning process, and works as a guideline for educators on how to design and teach CAD/BIM courses simultaneously by considering the learning process and perspectives of students. © 2018 The autho

The Law of Conservation of Activities in Domestic Space

Until the early twentieth century, for hundreds of years, the housing prototype in Seoul has been a courtyard house where a central open space is surrounded by building blocks and fence. Through the twentieth century, as new modern types of houses emerged, the housing culture began to change and consequently this prototype began to make transformations. This evolutionary process necessarily accompanied the functional change of room activities; some rooms acquired more activities and some lost them; and some has lost all the activities and became extinct. This paper attempts to analyse the housing evolution in Seoul by measuring the ″space-activity interactions″. Through the analysis, it is found that, at the collective level, the basic home activities are preserved through the formal change of the house. Without leaving the domestic field, they are decomposed into separate elements, re-distributed into other spaces, and then re-combined to characterise a new type of space. This is the internal spatial mechanism by which the old house is gradually transformed into a new house

Social Housing: Chatsworth Gardens, Ashchurch Place, Fleet Street Hill, Baden Powell Close, Hannibal Road Gardens

This return comprises five social housing projects undertaken by Peter Barber between 2009 and 2013, some built, some unbuilt. The un-built projects contribute significantly to the development of Barber’s research agenda over this period. The primary research questions addressed by the projects are: Can urban life can be regenerated through well designed, mixed use high-density housing? Can sustainable development can be achieved through good design? Can better use of land and resources can be achieved through higher densities in housing? How can energy saving objectives be met in high-density housing? Each of the projects was developed through observational site visits and discussions with clients, community members and local planning officers. Conceptual design strategies drew on the writings of Walter Benjamin and Jane Jacobs, in line with Barber’s on-going interest in the cultural life of the urban street, and in-depth analysis of vernacular housing typologies and the work of his contemporaries. Key urban design moves were established early on in design processes and remained consistent through their evolution. Extensive physical model making, three-dimensional sketching and other forms of visualisation tested design options and refined the overall configuration of the buildings in terms of accessibility, circulation, lighting, housing typology and general functional viability. The many exploratory physical models for each scheme were all constructed with the same logic as the real construction operations would be on site, being regularly and quickly updated throughout the whole process. Positive coverage of these projects has appeared in the architectural press and popular media. Hannibal Road Gardens was awarded a 2013 RIBA London National Award. Baden Powell Close was shortlisted for a 2010 RIBA Award. In the same year, Peter Barber Architects was awarded the 2010/2011 Building Design Architect of the Year Award for Housing. This followed commendation in the 2008 Civic Trust Awards

Seismic vulnerability assessment of clustered historical centers: fragility curves based on local collapse mechanisms analyses

open5noProtection and preservation of minor historical centres against earthquakes effects are not trivial tasks, particularly in the cases, quite common, of complex aggregate buildings. The paper aims at evaluating the seismic vulnerability of historical clustered buildings on a urban scale, through the analysis of local collapse mechanisms, carried out with a parametric approach. This procedure is applied to four historical centres of L’Aquila province struck by the 2009 earthquake. The identification of the significant parameters is related to the definition of representative typologies within the city centres. Each typology is characterized by recurring features, mainly recognizable with a survey performed outside the buildings. After the identification of the relevant aspects, local mechanisms of collapse analyses are carried out, by varying the parameters between defined range of values, in order to take into account possible uncertainties in the data collection. A set of fragility curves for each identified typology is defined and the obtained results are compared to the damage data gathered in the post-earthquake phase for the buildings. This approach allows for possible extensions to buildings that may be included in the typology categories here defined.openTaffarel, S.; Caliman, M.; Valluzzi, M.R; da Porto, F.; Modena, C.Taffarel, Sabrina; Caliman, M.; Valluzzi, MARIA ROSA; DA PORTO, Francesca; Modena, Claudi

The Acoustics of the Choir in Spanish Cathedrals

One of the most significant enclosures in worship spaces is that of the choir. Generally, from a historical point of view, the choir is a semi-enclosed and privileged area reserved for the clergy, whose position and configuration gives it a private character. Regarding the generation and transformation of ecclesial interior spaces, the choir commands a role of the first magnitude. Its shape and location produce, on occasions, major modifications that significantly affect the acoustics of these indoor spaces. In the case of Spanish cathedrals, whose design responds to the so-called “Spanish type”, the central position of the choir, enclosed by high stonework walls on three of its sides and with numerous wooden stalls inside, breaks up the space in the main nave, thereby generating other new spaces, such as the trascoro. The aim of this work was to analyse the acoustic evolution of the choir as one of the main elements that configure the sound space of Spanish cathedrals. By means of in situ measurements and simulation models, the main acoustic parameters were evaluated, both in their current state and in their original configurations that have since disappeared. This analysis enabled the various acoustic conditions existing between the choir itself and the area of the faithful to be verified, and the significant improvement of the acoustic quality in the choir space to become apparent. The effect on the acoustic parameters is highly significant, with slight differences in the choir, where the values are appropriate for Gregorian chants, and suitable intelligibility of sung text. High values are also obtained in the area of the faithful, which lacked specific acoustic requirements at the time of construction

Crossing the threshold: a critical analysis of Levantine domestic architecture

Archaeologists studying ancient domestic architecture are often confronted with highly fragmentary architectural remains. This lack of data could lead to a focus on the visual comparison of floor plans as the most reliable and accessible source of information, or the exclusion of fragmentary structures altogether. It is argued, however, that all architectural remains carry a wide range of possibly meaningful information, which can be analyzed using an equally wide range of approaches. As an example, a set of highly fragmentary houses from the Northern Levantine region, dated to the Iron Age I period, was subjected to a quantitative, formal, technological, contextual and urban analysis, offering a diverse picture of the ancient architecture and its inhabitant