September 28, 2022

Visual Character Analysis for Algorithmic Building Design

September 28, 2022/ r s-s

VISUAL CHARACTER ANALYSIS FOR ALGORITHMIC BUILDING DESIGN
Buildings are responsible for 40% of world C02 emissions and 40% of the world's raw material consumption. Designing buildings with a reduced material volume is essential to securing a post-carbon built environment and supports a more affordable, accessible architecture. Architecture’s material efficiency is correlated to structural efficiency however, buildings are seldom optimal structures. Architects must resolve several conflicting design criteria that can take precedence over structural concerns, while material-optimization is also impacted from limited means to quantitatively assess aesthetic decisions. A novel approach to quantitative analysis of visual formal character. Computer vision methods Gabor filtering, Canny Contouring and others are utilized to evaluate the visual appearance of designs and encode these within quantitative metrics. A matrix of design outcomes for a pavilion were utilized to evaluate visual character relative to structural, and geometric methods of analysis and demonstrate a limited set of aesthetic design criteria can be correlated with structural and geometric data in a quantitative metric.

Lead Researcher: Robert Stuart-Smith
Researchers: Patrick Danahy

AML-PENN

Autonomous Manufacturing Lab Weitzman School of Design | University of Pennsylvania
Autonomous Manufacturing Lab (AML-PENN) explores the integration of design and production within robotic processes of building manufacturing. The interdisciplinary AML lab aims to develop innovative methods of autonomous and semi-autonomous bespoke fabrication that leverage real-time robotics, computation, sensor and computer vision technologies within generative design processes for architectural design. AML-PENNDesign is part of PennDesign's Advanced Research and Innovation Lab (ARI).

Advanced Research & Innovation Lab & PennDesign Robotics Lab
The Advanced Research & Innovation Lab (ARI) brings together the combined expertise of PennDesign faculty members with state-of-the art fabrication, measurement and modeling technologies. ARI is led by Professor and Chair of Architecture Winka Dubbeldam and comprises a wide variety of research groups: the Autonomous Manufacturing Lab (Assistant Professor of Architecture Robert Stuart-Smith), the Polyhedral Structures Lab or PSL (Assistant Professor of Architecture Masoud Akbarzadeh), and the Baroque Topologies Lab (Associate Professor of Architecture Andrew Saunders), with additional initiatives in development. As part of multi-year plan to provide additional tools and facilities to support the scholarship of PennDesign faculty and students, ARI opens up vast new territories for innovation and places the School at the forefront of applied and speculative research in several domains.

University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design
The Weitzman School of Design prepares students to address complex sociocultural and environmental issues through thoughtful inquiry, creative expression, and innovation. As a diverse community of scholars and practitioners, we are committed to advancing the public good–both locally and globally–through art, design, planning, and preservation.

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