9,962 research outputs found
Comparison of Partitioning Methods for Estimating the Layout of Green Spaces
The urban green space positively affects the quality of the environment and urban life. To estimate the layout of urban green spaces, especially to describe the real difference of regional properties, the influenced zone of each green space should be identified firstly. The influenced zone can be used to quantitatively analyse the difference of regional environmental quality. The identification of the influenced zones of green spaces actually is a problem of space partitioning. The study compared three methods mostly used in space partitioning. The regular grid is a most common partitioning method. It is easy to use, but cannot link the grid with green space separately. Voronoi algorithm is a constructive method which partitions the urban space based on each green. Another approach is the application of gravity models, which assumed analogies between human behaviour and Newtonian gravity laws. The gravity model could calculate the probabilities of residents to choose the green space and partition the urban space. In the comparison of these three methods, we conclude that the gravity model can take more characteristics of the green space as the calculating parameters. The gravity model is a better method to estimate the layout of urban green spaces
Towards a BIM-Based Energy Rating System
Governments in Australia are faced with policy implementation that mandates higher energy efficient housing (Foran, Lenzen & Dey 2005). To this effect, the National Construction Code (NCC) 2013 stipulates the minimum energy performance for residential buildings as 114MJ/m2 per annum or 6 stars on an energy rating scale. Compliance with this minimum is mandatory but there are several methods through which residential buildings can be rated to comply with the deemed to satisfy provisions outlined in the NCC. FirstRate5 is by far the most commonly used simulation software used in Victoria, Australia. Meanwhile, Building Information Modelling (BIM), using software such as ArchiCAD has gained a foothold in the industry. The energy simulation software within ArchiCAD, EcoDesigner, enables the reporting on the energy performance based on BIM elements that contain thermal information. This research is founded on a comparative study between FirstRate5 and EcoDesigner. Three building types were analysed and compared. The comparison finds significant differences between simulations, being, measured areas, thermal loads and potentially serious shortcomings within FirstRate5, that are discussed along with the future potential of a fully BIM-integrated model for energy rating certification in Victoria
Aerodynamic Features as Auxiliary Architecture
This paper presents the experimental study of aerodynamics phenomena in built environments, focused on explorations of environmental wind flow near buildings, pedestrian wind comfort issues and methods of mitigation of wind speed. In addition, it is an overview of an aerodynamic analysis with CFD software for a hypothetical urban shelter design, based on aerodynamic features. The aim is to evaluate the feature’s performance to control wind flow in protection regions for pedestrians
Anything, Anyone, Anywhere
According to Hod Lipson at Cornell University’s Creative Machines Lab, cloud manufacturing ‘consists of a network of smallscale, decentralized nodes of production.’ It is a novel production approach relative to centralized mass production and standardisation methods common to today’s industrial processes. To date, cloud manufacturing techniques have focused largely on the production of smallscale consumer goods that integrate digital fabrication techniques, the most popular being 3D-printing technology. With advances in network-based design platforms for 3D-printing services in combination with the global installation of fabrication laboratories (fab lab), the production of architectural building components using cloud manufacturing techniques is now possible. This paper will define how cloud manufacturing techniques can be expanded into the realm of architectural practice and, in particular, how such techniques can be applied to larger-scale building and construction components. The paper will further discuss how such novel additive manufacturing (AM) processes applied to construction can potentially revolutionize architectural design by generating a new collaborative design model that facilitates local production of customized and readily assembled building components on demand
A Future Scenarios Based Computational Framework for Campus Planning
Future forecasting methodologies and computational applications are applied for developing an interactive design framework in campus planning process. The proposed computational design framework programs various design rules intended for producing buildings with optimized capabilities to adapt to their future settings and meet the functional requirements based upon future scenarios. The implementation of the computational framework for the future scenarios based campus planning is introduced
Lily: Developing a Contextual Idea Linking Tool for Designing on Site
This research develops a supporting tool (Lily) to inspire designer generates relevant ideas while he or she is on site visiting. This mobile application has been developed via scenario-based design paradigm and testing experiment. Based on the analysis of the interaction process from experiment observation, the visualization is comprised of both the physical information (site) and virtual information (linking form idea pieces) that is implemented based on the Location-Based technology with iOS application platform. An implementation called Lily
Evolving Lego
In evolutionary design algorithms, the evolutionary procedures have a major impact on the quality of the genotype-fitness mapping, which in turn impacts the performance of the algorithm. Two key issues affecting the quality of a mapping are the size of the genotype space and the locality of the mapping. In order to systematically investigate the role that genotype space and locality have on evolutionary performance, a set of experiments are conducted using benchmark test cases consisting of simple LEGO structures. Three different developmental procedures are implemented and tested. The results confirm that locality is critical in achieving good performance and in some cases may have a greater impact than genotype length
Spatial Agglomerates
This paper reports on the computational modelling research investigating spatial organisations often associated with unplanned settlements. Such spatial agglomerates are composed of several co-located but autonomous units (agents) that share common facilities and infrastructure (e.g. circulation). Depending on the context, units in the agglomerate represent individual dwellings, apartments or abstract spatial geometry. The paper presents early prototype models that can be interpreted at various scale, and a computational model for generating organic settlement layouts. The originality of the research resides within a new multi-agent algorithm for creating spatial organisations. The agglomeration process benefits from two distinct generative design strategies – self-organisation and adaptive development strategy. While the self-organisation accounts for the emergence of the global structure in the agglomeration, the adaptive development strategy ensures that the basic environmental and spatial requirements of each individual unit are satisfied
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