A “design process” includes many steps needed to design and construct a built environment. This includes everything from initial data-mining and schematic design all the way through to construction and post-occupancy evaluation. As built environments become more complex, building performance demands increase, and work schedules compress, project teams need to be more effective and efficient at every stage of this process.
As computational design space exploration methods become more common, designers need increasingly faster ways to accurately explore increasing vaster design spaces. Surrogate models, often constructed with Neural Networks (NN) are statistical approximations of domains that can return accurate enough answers at a fraction of the time needed to run simulation models. However, existing neural network... Read more »
Building in harmony with nature allows for the comfort and well-being of inhabitants of a home, building, neighborhood, or even a district. In this research, we studied the ways in which harmony is achieved in nature, and the ways in which it is achieved in existing building science. We propose a novel bridge between active and passive mechanical... Read more »
ABSTRACT: The paper will discuss the design of a bi-directional thermo-hygroscopic façade as a dedicated outdoor air system to cool and dehumidify outside air. The system is a variant of dedicated outdoor air systems to separate dehumidification and cooling in air-conditioning equipment and locates components within the building envelope. The integrated hybrid-building envelope relies on... Read more »
ABSTRACT: Available energy analysis and optimization methods do not produce fast and accurate enough results to provide guidance to professional design teams making massing and technology decisions. This paper proposes two methods using the reduced-order Energy Performance Calculation (EPC) toolkit with parametric building models and optimizers in Rhinoceros, Grasshopper and MATLAB to provide rapid feedback... Read more »
This article discusses the importance of perception of spaces, and involvement with spaces during the design process. Over the last decade, mapping the relationship of architectural spaces to human experience has become popular as a successful design methodology. The beginning phase of the design process is characterized by perceptual integrity; unfortunately, this integrity often fades... Read more »
Driven by a bottom-up architectural approach to integrate phase changing materials and digital fabrication tools, such as industrial robotic arms, this article presents a novel materially generated fabrication process. The process 3D prints and stretches plastics, where the extruding and freezing temperatures, pulling speeds and angles are controlled through highly customized heads mounted on robots.... Read more »
The U.S. healthcare industry is changing and shifting its focus toward prevention and community health. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and interactive mapping can help healthcare clients visualize problem areas in their communities and help answer questions about how best to improve community health with limited financial resources. This research project reviewed existing literature to determine... Read more »
The paper discusses the use of a script to present an informative web-based platform as a design process for achieving net zero site energy projects. The script can collect, for electricity connect, and integrate data from utilities, for electricity and hot-water heating systems with financial incentives. Technical information can provide solutions for understanding the design,... Read more »
Our healthcare market sector is large and widespread across the firm. If there was a way to quantify the experience and expertise we have between our offices, it would be a very significant and impressive figure. Over the years we have demonstrated to ourselves the strength in our “collective collaboration” between our offices and have... Read more »
Building performance monitoring has a great potential to reduce energy usage through improved operation and maintenance. Enhanced functioning, lower energy costs, better indoor air quality and overall design satisfaction are some of the key benefits. However, in order to achieve these goals, successful transfer of design intent is required through all stages of design process... Read more »
This article examines the use of “event planning” for the determination of the functional and physical requirements of the new emergency department for Halifax Medical Center. Based on clinical processes, functional and operational goals of the project were established and projected workload, practice trends and strategic directives of the institution were developed. The method for conducting this... Read more »
