Data Driven Design Optimisation
By Gitanjali Ravi
The Architectural Boundary
The world around us is driven by processes that are in constant flux, shaping all matter and rendering it alive (Fernández-galiano, 2013). These processes effect/ affect matter by subjecting them to dynamic, ever-changing cycles of manifestation, deterioration and regeneration. In this ever-changing realm, man’s need for shelter has resulted in the evolution of the built environment into a realm that draws a strong, impenetrable line between the outside and the inside. While the building is largely shaped by the contextual environment around it, there does exist this perception of architecture as stark and sterile. The architectural skin displays the existence of strongly defined boundaries in the way it interacts and negotiates with the natural environment.
Meanwhile in the natural world, the boundary or the edge condition is often an area of immense diversity that is a direct result of complex interactions. For example, the estuarine environment where the river meets the sea is one of the most unique of its kind where the organisms are adapted to life in the shifting conditions at the margin of the sea.
This contrast has inspired discourse on the idea of the architectural organism and it brings to mind the works of Peter Cook, and particularly his Archigram drawing series titled the Veg House Drawings. Cook blurs the boundary between the garden and the house thereby speculating an architecture that has a close interwoven relationship with nature which then percolates down to the way in which the users may engage with the parts of the building as the environment transforms it over time (Cook, 2008).
From a biophilic perspective it is desirable that the architectural interface is permeable to interactions and allows for natural processes to have an impact on the built environment. While recent advances in design have furthered the incorporation of design principles and considerations for environment-responsive outputs, the transition to nature-centric, ecological design is still underway. Centered around this idea, this article investigates the development of an environmental data driven approach to design.
Drivers of Functional Performance:
Think about the streetscape around where you live, you would often find a rogue plant creeping out of the crevices in a wall or moss that grows only in certain areas on roofs. This hints at the existence of a relationship between form and performance. Form characteristics like surface articulations, aerodynamics, porosity and thickness of the mass, when taken into account with overall orientation to wind and exposure to solar radiation have a major impact on the performance of the architecture.
Designing for Interaction:
The initial stage of this workflow is aimed at understanding how these form characteristics can be manipulated to achieve better performance through an iterative process. It speculates the design of surfaces that could potentially host nature from a purely top-down approach by looking into geometry manipulation techniques that result in the creation of voids, niches and crevices that could host life, particularly plant species that are wind pollinates.
In order to evaluate the performance of each iteration, steady state CFD wind analysis is utilized. Average wind speeds correlating with the pollination periods for the chosen plant species are used to set up the studies. Forms are then chosen depending on their ability to create turbulence in the flow of wind, which would aid in the deposition of natural material on the surface over time.
Those iterations that perform better in the wind analysis are then used to create tessellations that are informed by point data from the CFD studies combined with solar radiation data to assign suitable modules to the geometry masses (Boyd, Maker and Ravi; 2021).
Framework for Design Optimisation:
This stage looks at how this design analysis technique can be used to optimize design. Findings from the previous speculative stage play a key factor in designing the framework. This workflow was tested on a community garden centre designed by Astudio Architects at Hargrave Hall in London. The design involves a community engagement perspective which gives the users the opportunity to involve themselves in the design process through virtual reality and choose where they would want to locate their gardening planters within the design.
In order to enrich the end user’s engagement with the design through VR this workflow is aimed at incorporating incident solar radiation analysis data into the VR realm. This would benefit the end users in their decision making by giving them optimum areas to situate their planters depending on the type of plant they choose to grow.
A similar approach to design development has also been tested with Astudio’s design for a residential development in Luton. The design is situated in an area with higher wind velocities and the idea is to utilize geometry configurations that would slow down wind speeds and create ambient environments on site for the residents and provide a well designed square for their use.
At Astudio, one of our major design philosophies is to leave the place better than we found it. We are constantly looking for ways to enrich the design process through research and technology. Do check out our projects page for more insight into the exciting projects we have worked on and keep an eye on for our future blog posts to know more about our design process.
References:
1. Fernández-galiano, L. (2013) Architecture and Energy, Architecture and Energy. doi: 10.4324/9780203630105.
2. Ravi, G. (2021) ‘Flux’
3. Charles Boyd, Madeline Maker and Gitanjali Ravi (2021) ‘Project Meadow Stone’