Archinect - News

MIT researchers are 'upcycling' waste tree forks to offset the environmental impacts of new construction

2022-03-11T12:36:00-05:00

A team of academics working in the Digital Structures research group at MIT's Building Technology Program has combined local aesthetic desires with the recent international push to expend increasing amounts of mass timber elements into new construction.

Associate professor Caitlin Mueller is in charge of a group that spent the last four years strategizing the uses of upcycled tree waste as a base material for load-bearing structures in an effort to reduce the outsized emissions caused by the high-carbon systems.

Working together with the professor, the team set up a five-step design-to-fabrication process that combines the use of ascendant digital technologies to recreate the Y-shaped nodes typical in many architectural drawings. Mueller says the eventual goal is to replace many of the recently-felled trees in her area with custom-made functional structures that “recreate the atmosphere and spatial experience previously provided.”

With help from the nearby city of Somerville’s Urb...

A new start-up wants to use AI and algorithms to replace "expensive, architect-designed" homes

2020-01-29T11:59:00-05:00

Tech start-up Higharc aims to "reinvent home design for the digital age," reports the Financial Times. The company uses iterative design to create "custom" 3D models and plans. Algorithmic design isn't new to architecture, but it looks like Higharc seeks to do away with "expensive, architect-designed plans that take forever to produce."

According to the Financial Times, Marc Minor, founder and CEO of Higharc, said that the company's system is "faster than existing best-in-class design software for homes...there are sophisticated algorithms behind the scenes continuously determining crucial details that typically take hours of manual effort."

Additionally, Pamela Wallgreen, co-founder of a start-up called Finch 3D, "whose software that automates repetitive tasks and guides architects through the design process" through simulation and AI encouraged architects to take advantage of these new emerging technologies.

Princeton University explores algorithm-based construction design with New York-based research group The Living

2019-07-18T13:51:00-04:00

Commissioned by Princeton University, this project is simple in form but sophisticated in function. It involves an “open source building” to host research on the future of construction and computation. Just as biologists use an electron microscope to study organisms, architects will use this structure to study buildings.

The idea of algorithms designing buildings may sound exciting to some and concerning to others. However, after decades of attempts at harnessing this process, companies like The Living may have cracked the system to automatically generating building designs. The New York-based research studio focuses on computation, sustainability practices, and biology to explore variations of building prototyping.

Image courtesy of Pablo Marvel/Nova Concepts

Image courtesy of Michael Moran/Michael Moran Photography, Inc.

In a recent news release from the studio, the team shares their new collaborative project with Princeton University. "The Embodied Computation Lab is a building that includes new sustainability and low-carbon features, and the facade involves the use of custom algorithms trained to detect knots in wood—bringing the power of machine learning to the physical world."

With technology rapidly changing the way architects, designers, and construction teams work together, The Living has i...

Would artificial intelligence like to say something about architecture?

2019-04-26T10:07:00-04:00

Artificial Intelligence, as a discipline, has already been permeating countless fields, bringing means and methods to previously unresolved challenges, across industries. The advent of AI in Architecture is still in its early days but offers promising results. More than a mere opportunity, such potential represents for us a major step ahead, about to reshape the architectural discipline.

Stanislas Chaillou, a Master's candidate in Architecture and Fulbright fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, believes that artificial intelligence can offer in-depth analysis and alternative strategies to the design of floor plans.

Orientation Diagrams, by Stanislas Chaillou

Chaillou argues that higher degrees of optimization, contextualization and classification are just a few of the benefits of applying artificial intelligence to the design of floor plans. "Generative Adversarial Neural Networks — or GANs- are here our weapon of choice," Chaillou writes. "Within the field of AI, Neural Networks stands as a key field of investigation. The creative ability of such models has been recently evidenced, through the advent of Generative Adversarial Neural Networks. As any machine-learning model, GANs learn statistically significant phenomena among data presented to them."

GAN-enabled Space Layout under Morphing Footprint, b y Stanislas Chaillou

We have already seen design softw...

Archinect Outpost to host launch of The Blindspot Initiative, Jose Sanchez's book of essays on design resistance

2019-01-18T14:22:00-05:00

Join us in celebrating The Blindspot Initiative, the latest book of projects and essays on design resistance and alternative modes of practice edited by Jose Sanchez at Archinect Outpost on Saturday, February 9th, 7-9pm. The evening will begin with a talk by Jose Sanchez and comments by contributors to the book (including Behnaz Farahi, Biayna Bogosian of Somewhere Something and Casey Rehm of Kinch), followed by a Virtual Reality demonstration and book signing.

The book is available for presale here, to be signed by Jose Sanchez at the event.

Gaming the Real World. Photo courtesy of Jose Sanchez of Plethora Project

Published by Evolo, The Blindspot Initiative contains a forward by generative software designer Casey Reas and texts by Jose Sanchez, David Gerber, Jenny Wu, Kate Davies and Mostafa Elsayed.

‘Multi Family House’ (Rendering courtesy of Gilles Retsin Architecture)

The Blindspot Initiative features work from a range of architectural designers, including Satoru Sugihara, Gille...

Optimizing floorplans via experimental algorithms

2018-12-21T14:13:00-05:00

Recent computational tools that model the simulation of traffic, acoustics and heat conservation, among others, are allowing a more quantitative objective evaluation of forms. The metrics could be expanded to include terrain maps, sun paths, existing trees and other environmental input, allowing the buildings to be highly adaptive to their context. The physics simulation could force certain boundary shape constraints.

Evolving Floorplans is an experimental research project created by a New York-based programmer, Joel Simon. When approaching floorplan design solely through the angle of optimization, a genetic algorithm arranges the rooms and the flow of people in a manner that minimizes things like walking time, the use of hallways, etc. The layout 'grows' from the encoding using methods such as graph contraction and ant-colony inspired algorithms, resulting in something 'biological in appearance, intriguing in character, and wildly irrational in practice'.

Coachella lineup created by a neural network generates new designers

2018-01-25T16:09:00-05:00

Move over Bureau Spectacular, Ball Nogues and LOC... robots are coming for your jobs.

Botnik Studios created a hilarious (and somewhat believable) Coachella lineup using their artificial intelligence RNN algorithm to generate a list of band names and installation designers. Located at the bottom of the poster, the new designer list reads:

With large-scale art installations by

Mr. Wall
Belly Legroom
Ed the Bjown
Benus Jackson
Melon Soxprane
Aunt Luke

Personal favorites: "Creepwell, Then Sleepwell", "Boy/Boys", and of course "Aunt Luke". Will a real Aunt Luke please come forward and grace the world with large-scale art installations? Thank you.

Robots designed my building: Zaha Hadid Architects employ algorithm to generate ideal facade for new Melbourne residential tower

2017-09-26T16:17:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects just unveiled designs for the new 19-story Mayfair Residential Tower in Melbourne, Australia sporting the firm's trademark parametrically generated curves. According to ZHA's statement, various algorithms were at work to design a wavy facade that adapts to a host of different apartment layouts and also to minimize the number of unique facade panels needed in order to bring down costs.

Read on for renderings and a project description from the architects.

Rendering: VA

"Located within the established streetscape of St Kilda Road, the design enables residents to make full advantage of its excellent location within Melbourne. The fluid forms of the façade define large balconies for each apartment and spectacular views of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Port Phillip Bay, Albert Park and skyline of the Central Business District."

Rendering: VA

"For the seventh consecutive year, Melbourne has been listed as the ‘world’s most liveable city’. The design translates the many at...

How algorithms designed the sound of the new Hamburg concert hall

2017-08-30T18:30:00-04:00

Detached from the rest of the building for soundproofing reasons, the 10,000 panels that line the central auditorium are the result of parametric design, a process of creating multiple individual designs using algorithms. A million individual cells ranging from four to 16cm long are cut out from the panels [...] The ivory coloured gypsum fiber acoustic panels contain a seashell motif and were designed by Swiss architect Herzog & De Meuron with help from German studio One to One.

Interior view of the central concert hall. Photo: Iwan Baan.

"It would be insane to do this by hand," GCR quotes Benjamin Koren, founder of One to One, the studio that created the design algorithm for the concert hall's acoustic panels. "That’s the power of parametric design. I hit play, and it creates a million cells, all different and all based on these parameters. I have 100% control over setting up the algorithm, and then I have no more control.”

Photo: Johannes Arlt