Advanced design of complex façades

ABSTRACT

The Digital Transformation offers completely new possibilities for architects and façade designers. Through the application of Artificial Intelligence many design decisions can be made automatically. Since most design tasks are ultimately unique and therefore not operational, fully automatic façade design will not always lead to a satisfactory result. For these reasons, the authors propose a targeted combination of rational (rule-based) and intuitive (poetic) design strategies. The design task is divided into operational subtasks that are processed automatically on the computer and non-operational subtasks that are solved by computers and humans together. A creative and agile design team evaluates different variants proposed by the computer. Promising developments will be pursued and further developed. Then the generative mechanism is adapted and the design is optimized. The concept is refined until a sustainable, user-oriented design is available. However, for the foreseeable future, the solution of non-operational problems will only be possible through human intelligence. The fear that good architecture can be generated at the push of a button and that computers will replace architects and engineers is therefore unfounded.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital transformation
• complex façades
• generative design
• semi-automatic design
• human-computer interaction
• knowledge-based design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Prof. Dr-Ing. Winfried Heusler studied Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University Munich. The Technical University Berlin conferred a doctorate on him for his thesis on “daylight”. In 2014 he was awarded Honorary Professor for “façade design and technology” by the University of Applied Sciences in Detmold. Working for the façade construction company Gartner from 1982 until 1998, he joined Schueco in 1998, as Technical Director. Since 2014 he is Head of Global Building Excellence and technical ambassador for Schueco worldwide.

Dipl.-Ing Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. (FH) Ksenija Kadija With Schüco International KG, Bielefeld in the Engineering and Global Building Excellence departments (from 2005). Postgraduate studies in Industrial Engineering and Business Studies at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences (2002–2004). Architecture studies at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences (1996–2001), then worked in an architectural practice.