Development of educational methods for teaching the structural engineering content of the architectural curriculum

This thesis is concerned with some educational methods for teaching structural engineering to architectural students. After citing evidence for and against, the thesis argued that structural knowledge is essential as one of the generators in architectural design. A review of literature indicated that there is little unanimity about the content of the structural curriculum and a discussion followed on the structural knowledge and skills necessary from the architect for fruitful collaboration with the structural consultant. This part concluded with a list of general objectives for teaching structures to architects.As architectural design is closely concerned with creativity, this was examined in terms of architectural creativity and of teaching methods for structures. Modes of thinking as logic, association and bisociation of ideas and gestalt, in addition to the pyschological approach were discussed for relevancy in this context. A brief schema of the architects' process of creativity was produced. From that examination there emerges those qualities which are required for selecting and developing architectural /structural systems or relevant elements. A distinction was made between the serviceable product and the communication of feelings, perception and knowledge and the teaching methods reflect the difference found in the classification.Some teaching methods specific to structures were discussed, tested and developed for the efficiency in promoting those qualities found necessary for architectural /structural creativity. Programmed Learning was then tested and dicussed in terms of acquiring and transferring knowledge, attitude of the student, and the role of the teacher. Possible formats were suggested and tested including a comparison between using mathematics and not using mathematics to explain statically indeterminate systems

Modes of Interaction in Computational Architecture

This thesis is an enquiry into the importance and influence of interaction in architecture, the importance of which is observed through different modes of interaction occurring in various aspects of architectural discourse and practice. Interaction is primarily observed through the different use of software within architectural practice and in the construction of buildings, façades and systems. In turn, the kind of influences software has on architecture is one of the underlying questions of this thesis. Four qualities: Concept, Materiality, Digitization and Interactivity, are proposed as a theoretical base for the analysis and assessment of different aspects of computational architecture. These four qualities permeate and connect the diverse areas of research discussed, including architecture, cybernetics, computer science, interaction design and new media studies, which in combination provide the theoretical background. The modalities of computational architecture analysed here are, digital interior spaces, digitized design processes and communicational exterior environments. The analysis is conducted through case studies: The Fun Palace, Generator Project, Water Pavilion, Tower of Winds, Institute du Monde Arabe, The KPN building, Aegis Hyposurface, BIX Façade, Galleria Department Store, Dexia Tower, and also E:cue, Microstation, Auto-Cad, Rhino, Top Solid and GenerativeComponents software. These are important for discussion because they present different architectural concepts and thoughts about interactivity within architecture. The analytical processes used in the research distinguished and refined, eight modes of interaction: (1) interaction as a participatory process; (2) cybernetic mutualism; (3) thematic interaction; (4) human-computer interaction during architectural design production; (5) interaction during digital fabrication; (6) parametric interaction; (7) kinetic interaction with dynamic architectural forms; and (8) interaction with façades. Out of these, cybernetic mutualism is the mode of interaction proposed by this thesis

Center for Aeronautics and Space Information Sciences

This report summarizes the research done during 1991/92 under the Center for Aeronautics and Space Information Science (CASIS) program. The topics covered are computer architecture, networking, and neural nets

The Role of Bureaucracy in Managing Urban Land in Vietnam

In recent years, the Vietnamese government has opened up its economy to both domestic and foreign private investors. In the construction industry, however, developers must contend with a legal environment fraught with contradictions and idiosyncrasies. The industry is one marked by the subordination of law-widespread patronage, party policy, and traditional customs. While property rights superficially resemble those in Western states, ownership and development are in theory strictly controlled by the central government. But paradoxically, the level of compliance with property laws is substantially lower in Vietnam than in the West. Noncompliance with property laws and building regulations is perpetuated by municipal authorities, private investors, and the central bureaucracy itself. Many factors contribute to this widespread noncompliance including the lack of administrative accountability, Vietnam\u27s traditional non-legalistic culture, and the absence of incentives for people to comply. Nevertheless, compliance may be improved by taking a decentralized approach to enforcement which includes, inter alia, educating people about the law, integrating the public in developing planning schemes, disciplining corrupt officials, promoting capable officials, and improving the writing and availability of the law

A KNOWLEDGE BASED SUPPORT TOOL FOR THE EARLY STAGES OF ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING DESIGN

A desire to produce a design support system for the early stages of electronic engineering design, has led to the conception of the Plymouth Engineer's Design Assistant (PEDA), pulling together experience from the three fields of computing, psychology and electronic engineering. The basic emphasis of this tool has been to use psychological techniques to analyze the cognitive aspects of designers in action and then make recommendations for design tool improvement. The results of the complementary psychological research, and other relevant literature are examined and potential avenues to realizing an improving design explored. A new idealized abstract representation of early electronic engineering is proposed, which is more in line witli the cognitive needs of designers, thus enabling the production of more capable design tools. The main points of the representation are discussed, and comparisons with other approaches and tools drawn. The abstract representation is then taken and used to form a specific implementation as the core to the PEDA tool. An overview of the PEDA tool is given, followed by a discussion regarding the important aspects of the implementation. Important issues and problems raised during the course of the research are discussed, together with suggestions for future work.THE UNIVERSITY OF READING and PLESSEY SEMI-CONDUCTORS, ROBOROUGH, PLYMOUT

Builders of the vision : technology and the imagination of design

Thesis (Ph. D. in Design and Computation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-208).This dissertation identifies and documents a "technological imagination of design" emerging around the reconfigured discourses of design and design representation by the culture of technology production in the Computer-Aided Design Project, a Cold War era research operation funded by the US Air Force at MIT, tracing it into its contemporary deployment in the technology project known as Building Information Modeling. Exploring the discursive and technological linkages between these two sites, the dissertation outlines the ongoing project of construing technological centrality and universality as the dominant trope in discourses about design production. An expanded critical perspective on design is thus developed that looks at technological systems -such as software- and the cultures that produce them, with their histories and regimes of power, as crucial participants in, rather than as neutral vessels for, the design and production of our built environment. The dissertation ranges from examining the politics of representation, participation and authorship in the systems imagined by members of the Computer-Aided Design Project -in particular that of Steven Coons and Nicholas Negroponte's "man-machine" design systems- to discussing the culture of BIM coordination through an ethnographic portrait and data-visualization of its practice at Gehry Technologies, in two large-scale projects in the United Arab Emirates. As this study demonstrates, technological discourses and artifacts act as brokers for culturally dominant conceptions of design, representation, and work.by Daniel Cardoso Llach.Ph.D.in Design and Computatio

Towards an automated photogrammetry-based approach for monitoring and controlling construction site activities

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. The construction industry has a poor productivity record, which was predominantly ascribed to inadequate monitoring of how a project is progressing at any given time. Most available approaches do not offer key stakeholders a shared understanding of project performance in real-time, which as a result fail to identify any project slippage on the original schedule. This paper reports on the development of a novel automatic system for monitoring, updating and controlling construction site activities in real-time. The proposed system seeks to harness advances in close-range photogrammetry to deliver an original approach that is capable of continuous monitoring of construction activities, with progress status determined, at any given time, throughout the construction lifecycle. The proposed approach has the potential to identify any deviation of as planned construction schedules, so prompt action can be taken because of an automatic notification system, which informs decision-makers via emails and SMS. This system was rigorously tested in a real-life case study of an in-progress construction site. The findings revealed that the proposed system achieved a significant high level of accuracy and automation, and was relatively cheap and easier to operate

Building geometric models with hand-drawn sketches

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-51).Architects work on drawings and models, not buildings. Today, in many architectural practices, drawings and models are produced in digital format using Computer-aided Design (CAD) tools. Unquestionably, digital media have changed the way in which many architects perform their day to day activities. But these changes have been limited to the more prosaic aspects of practice. To be sure, CAD systems have made the daily operations of many design offices more efficient; nevertheless, they have been of little use - and indeed are often a hindrance - in situations where the task at hand is more conjectural and speculative in nature, as it is during the early stages of a project. Well-intentioned efforts to insinuate CAD into these aspects of practice have only served to reveal the incongruities between the demands of designer and the configuration of the available tools. One of the chief attributes of design practice is that it is action performed at a distance through the agency of representations. This fundamental trait implies that we have to understand how computers help architects describe buildings if we are to understand how they might help architects design buildings. As obvious as this claim might seem, CAD programs can be almost universally characterized by a tacit denigration of visual representation. In this thesis, I examine properties of design drawings that make them useful to architects. I go on to describe a computer program that I have written that allows a designer to build geometric models using freehand sketches. This program illustrates that it is possible to design a software tool in a way that profits from, rather than negates, the power of visual representations.by Ewan E. Branda.M.S

A comparative study between deep learning algorithm and bayesian network on Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attack detection

Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks are a major concern for the cybersecurity in digital world due to their advanced nature. Attackers are skilful to cause maximal destruction for targeted cyber environment. These APT attacks are also well funded by governments in many cases. The APT attacker can achieve his hostile goals by obtaining information and gaining financial benefits regarding the infrastructure of a network. It is highly important to study proper countermeasures to detect these attacks as early as possible due to sophisticated methods. It is difficult to detect this type of attack since the network may crash because of high traffic. Hence, in this study, this research is to study the comparison between Multilayer Perceptron and Naïve-Bayes of APT attack detection. Since the APT attack is persistent and permanent presence in the victim system, so minimal false positive rate (FPR) and high accuracy detection is required to detect the APT attack detection. Besides, Multilayer Perceptron algorithm has high true positive rate (TPR) in the detection of APT attack compared to Naïve Bayes algorithm. This means that Multilayer Perceptron algorithm can detect APT attack more accurately. Based on the result, it also can conclude that the lower the false positive rate (FPR), the more accurate to detect APT attack. Lastly, the research would also help to spread the awareness about the APT intrusion where it possibly can cause huge damage to everyone

A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study into the impact of BIM on the Social Dynamics of the AEC professional in the workplace.

A review of the literature published surrounding new digital design and construction technologies and associated processes described within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) community as Building Information Modelling (BIM) or Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) reveals a gap in the theoretical understanding of the impact these technologies are having on professionals who work in this industry. The central aim of this research is to discover if there has been a shift in social dynamics as a result of the adoption of BIM in the workplace and, if there has been, to discuss the meaning of this for the industry and the community who educate these professionals. This study is important as it seeks to develop an understanding of the impact of BIM from the perspective of those AEC professionals affected. The study of human beings is referred to as Anthropology. It is a social science and is characterised as the study of human societies, cultures, and development often affected by social or technical intervention. BIM is an example of a technological intervention that has been introduced into the complex design and construction industry. This multidisciplinary industry has relied on representation in the form of paper-based communication documents for 500 years. However, with the introduction of new technologies, the AEC industry is experiencing a digital transformation, characterised by a move from representation to simulation. The author has conducted a study examining the lived experience of AEC professionals who have come into contact with the subject phenomenon in their workplace. The workplace is the locus for this research. It is defined as the place where the AEC professionals conduct their day to day business. The subjects of this research study are a purposeful selection of industry professionals who have experienced the phenomenon and have told the Author their stories. These lived experiences have been analysed and interpreted using a suitable methodology to address the research question; in this case, Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The data analysis has identified four themes: Identity, Empowerment, Disarrangement and Collaborative Practice. The emergence of these themes and the discussion around them will add new knowledge into the subject area. The study concludes by discussing the implications of this research for the design and construction industry and educational institutions