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The efficiently formed building

In this exclusive extract from Space Craft: developments in architectural computing we introduce the design of complex-shaped buildings using new software tools.

Designing free-form buildings and blobs is the new trend in architecture. This is due to newly evolved software tools and the ease in creating such objects. Complex-shaped buildings are obviously more expensive to engineer, build, operate and maintain, providing a motivation for researching procedures to simplify the process of designing them.

The techniques used by the Generative Geometry Group at Buro Happold allow them to realise and engineer free-form buildings through making both the process and the buildings more efficient.

Complex designs are those that cannot be described in basic geometric terms; they consist of interlocked simpler parts, the ‘geometric components’. Complex models could be a result of experimental design processes or simply an architectural design concept. In either case, the design team has to be innovative and inventive in order to extract and design a building strategy to engineer the architectural object.

Complexity can be a structural solution in itself; a pure, efficient structure is usually a complex shaped one. Catenaries are pure structural forms but they are expensive to build due to their complex geometries; beams are simple and cheap but are not an efficient form. Simulation, optimisation and modelling provide ways of identifying a solution that meets these multiple demands.

A distinction between free-form designs and form-found designs should also be made. ‘Freeform’ designs are shaped by the architect without referring to material and structural behaviours. ‘Form-found’ designs, however, are evolving structures, created through a dependency on physical forces, the constraints of materials and the effect of spatial boundary conditions.

Free forms, with the large and complicated structures necessary to keep them aloft, can be realised at a high price. As complicated building systems are employed, maintenance, access and installation become difficult and yet another expensive undertaking. Form-found structures are more efficient, as competing principles are assimilated and optimised throughout the design process – by employing a parametric computational environment, there is an inherent flexibility allowing different design options to be explored. The use of parametric tools has become important, allowing us to explore multiple design alternatives in an interactive environment; this permits us to evaluate and compare different design solutions and to choose the most efficient one that pleases all parties and fits within the budget.

Extract from Space Craft: developments in architectural computing, edited by David Littlefield, RIBA Publishing, April 2008

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