Computational Design of Cold Bent Glass Fa\c{c}ades

Cold bent glass is a promising and cost-efficient method for realizing doubly curved glass fa\c{c}ades. They are produced by attaching planar glass sheets to curved frames and require keeping the occurring stress within safe limits. However, it is very challenging to navigate the design space of cold bent glass panels due to the fragility of the material, which impedes the form-finding for practically feasible and aesthetically pleasing cold bent glass fa\c{c}ades. We propose an interactive, data-driven approach for designing cold bent glass fa\c{c}ades that can be seamlessly integrated into a typical architectural design pipeline. Our method allows non-expert users to interactively edit a parametric surface while providing real-time feedback on the deformed shape and maximum stress of cold bent glass panels. Designs are automatically refined to minimize several fairness criteria while maximal stresses are kept within glass limits. We achieve interactive frame rates by using a differentiable Mixture Density Network trained from more than a million simulations. Given a curved boundary, our regression model is capable of handling multistable configurations and accurately predicting the equilibrium shape of the panel and its corresponding maximal stress. We show predictions are highly accurate and validate our results with a physical realization of a cold bent glass surface

Vierecksnetze als optimierte Architektonische Freiformstrukturen

This thesis tackles the design of freeform surface-like and load-bearing structures realized with cladding panels and supported by a framework substructure, often called gridshells. The actual fabrication of freeform gridshells is a challenging task, and easily leads to unsustainable costs. A well known strategy to realize a gridshell is to use as layout a so-called principal mesh. This is a quadrilateral mesh whose edges follow the principal curvature directions of a continuous surface. We achieve in this way flat cladding panels and a substructure with simplified connections. This thesis shows that quadrilateral meshes, besides allowing manufacturing simplification, are also optimal solutions both for static performance and smooth visual appearance. In particular, we show that the best static performance is achieved for quad meshes discretizing membranes along principal stress lines, and we get an absolute minimum on such membranes where the integral of absolute principal stresses is minimal. We also show that the best smooth visual appearance is achieved for principal meshes; the absolute minimum is now reached for principal meshes discretizing surfaces where the integral of absolute principal curvatures is minimal. Therefore, from membranes where stress and curvature directions are aligned, and where the total absolute stress is minimal, we can extract principal meshes with the best static performance and with optimal visual appearance. We present then computational tools for the design of such highly efficient gridshells.This thesis tackles the design of freeform surface-like and load-bearing structures realized with cladding panels and supported by a framework substructure, often called gridshells. The actual fabrication of freeform gridshells is a challenging task, and easily leads to unsustainable costs. A well known strategy to realize a gridshell is to use as layout a so-called principal mesh. This is a quadrilateral mesh whose edges follow the principal curvature directions of a continuous surface. We achieve in this way flat cladding panels and a substructure with simplified connections. This thesis shows that quadrilateral meshes, besides allowing manufacturing simplification, are also optimal solutions both for static performance and smooth visual appearance. In particular, we show that the best static performance is achieved for quad meshes discretizing membranes along principal stress lines, and we get an absolute minimum on such membranes where the integral of absolute principal stresses is minimal. We also show that the best smooth visual appearance is achieved for principal meshes; the absolute minimum is now reached for principal meshes discretizing surfaces where the integral of absolute principal curvatures is minimal. Therefore, from membranes where stress and curvature directions are aligned, and where the total absolute stress is minimal, we can extract principal meshes with the best static performance and with optimal visual appearance. We present then computational tools for the design of such highly efficient gridshells.11

Preliminary Design Through Graphs: A Tool For Automatic Layout Distribution

Diagrams are essential in the preliminary stages of design for understanding distributive aspects and assisting the decision-making process. By drawing a schematic graph, designers can visualize in a synthetic way the relationships between many aspects: functions and spaces, distribution of layouts, space adjacency, influence of traffic flows within a facility layout, and so on. This process can be automated through the use of modern ICT tools that allow the designer to manage a large amount of information. The work that we will present is part of ongoing research into how modern parametric software influences decision-making on the basis of automatic and optimized layout distribution. The method involves two phases: the first aims to define the ontological relation between spaces, with particular reference to a specific building typology (rules of aggregation of spaces); the second, entails the implementation of these rules through specialist software. The generation of ontological relations begins with the collection of data from historical manuals and analyses of case studies. These analyses aim to generate a "relationship matrix" based on preferences of space adjacency. The phase of implementing the previously defined rules is based on the use of Grasshopper to analyse and visualize different layout configurations. The layout is generated through the simulation of a process of colliding spheres, which each represent specific functions of the design program. The spheres are attracted or rejected as a function of the matrix of relationships as defined above. The layout thus obtained will remain in a sort of abstract state without regard to information about the exterior form, but still provide a useful configuration for the designer to use in the decision-making process. In addition, preliminary results gathered through the analysis of several case studies will be presented. These results provide a good variety of layout distribution over a short time for medium and large-scale problems