Applying generative modeling procedure to explore architectural forms

Computer generated 3D forms using generative procedures have matured in the last decade and now considered as a tangible approach for realizing architectural design ideas. As fascinating as the approach might be, it is still lacking actual application in the early architectural design process. There are many reasons for this, among them: it has many implications over the architectural design process mainly the practicality of design during the conceptual design stage, it is cumbersome to develop construction drawings for complex architectural forms, and the necessity for producing conceptual designs quickly in less time as design requirements and decisions are constantly being changed. This paper initially reports on a practical development of a computer program which generates architectural massing designs based on integrating forms generation technique in a design scheme. The influence for this development was inspired by Spirolaterals technique used in generating complex 3D architectural forms that are based on parametric shape configuration. The development has three goals: to review the principles for constructing generative forms in the conceptual design stage using simple CAD tools, to assist in the production of design schemes based on a few basic shapes and rules, and to explore 3D forms finding and generation without the need to write a complicated computer program that are difficult to produce by hand. The development resulted in generating an interesting number of 3D compositions. The author applied this technique to experiment during the production of a design scheme. The paper hence describes the current development of ArchiGen tool to produces generative 3D forms utilizing ArchiCAD • © GDL programming language. The tool is embedded within ArchiCAD for generating 3D shapes. One of the main features of this implementation is that users are able to sketch 2D shapes and the tool will deform its three dimensional generation. Moreover, the user being able to abstract the architectural character from the resulting complex 3D shapes. This development extends current related work by allowing the designer to load shapes into ArchiGen which acts as vocabulary of shapes for a design scheme constraints. It is intended from this work to inspire future work focusing on using generative tools in the early conceptual design stages.

Identification and Visualisation of Construction Activities Workspace Conflicts Utilising 4D CAD/VR Tools

This work addresses the problem arising on all construction sites: the occurrence of workspace interference between construction activities. From a site space planning context, this problem can lead to an inevitable roadblock to the progress of the scheduled construction operations. In real situations, when the spatial congestions occur, they could reduce productivity of workers sharing the same workspace and may cause health and safety hazard issues. The aim of this paper is on presenting a computer-based method and developed tool to assist site managers in the assignment and identification of workspace conflicts. The author focuses on the concept of “visualising space competition” between the construction activities. The concept is based on a unique representation of the dynamic behaviour of activity workspace in 3D space and time. An innovative computer-based tool dubbed PECASO (Patterns Execution and Critical Analysis of Site-space Organisation) has been developed. The emerging technique of 4D (3D + time) visualisation has been chosen to yield an interesting 4D space planning and visualisation tool. A multi-criteria function for measuring the severity of the workspace congestions is designed, embedding the spatial and schedule related criteria. The paper evaluates the PECASO approach in order to minimise the workspace congestions, using a real case study. The paper concludes that the PECASO approach reduces the number of competing workspaces and the conflicting volumes between occupied workspace, which in turn produces better assessment to the execution strategy for a given project schedule. The system proves to be a promising tool for 4D space planning, in that it introduces a new way of communicating the programme of work

Em\u27body\u27ing Virtual Architecture: the Third International Conference of the Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design

The increasing speed of technological improvements outpaced many design issues. Nowadays, architecture is accepting digital design tools and technologies as a feature integrated in design process and in spaces of our everyday “Being-in-the-World”. The consequences of this integration result in many changing and expanding forms of interaction