Performance-based design of multi-story buildings for a sustainable urban environment: A case study

Abstract

This paper critically reviews the role of performance-based generative design in fast prototyping of buildings, describes the methodology of an automated generative layout design to produce complete building solutions, and presents a case study of multi-story buildings in urban context. The proposed approach evolves the building design solutions by interacting with the city 3D geometry and evaluates the energy consumption for airconditioning. The building designs take into consideration urban geometric constraints and objectives, such as alignment with surrounding buildings, urban lot area, and relative and absolute position of the generated elements. During the evaluation process, the urban context is considered for casting shadows and reflecting solar radiation. The case study consists of six alternative 15-story buildings located in the city of São Paulo (Brazil), having commercial areas on the ground floor and two apartments per story on the remaining floors. The results show that, despite having similar apartments in every story, the urban context has a relevant impact on the buildings' energy performance. The difference between the apartments' best and worst energy performing stories ranges from 9 % to 12 % (ignoring the outlier story located in the first level), depending on the building solution. The results also show that the most energy efficient apartments' story is not located in the top or bottom floors, but rather at an intermediate level. Highlights • Urban context is added to an automatic floor plan generation procedure • Alternative 15-story buildings are generated with residential and commercial spaces • Energy consumption for airconditioning is evaluated for every apartment • Shadows and reflections from surroundings are evaluated during dynamic simulation • Stories' energy performance vary from 9 % to 12 % despite having similar geometry

Simulating Large-Scale 3D Cadastral Dataset Using Procedural Modelling

“…The process starts by defining the type of residential units. This information is then used for generating the synthetic dataset using the procedural modelling method [54]. The generated models are then transformed to fit into a GIS environment to be suitable for data storage in the spatial DBMS.…”

“…For this study, the Evolutionary Program for the Space Allocation Problem (EPSAP) algorithm was used [54]. The EPSAP algorithm consists of a two-stage approach that has an Evolution Strategy (ES) framework, where the mutation operation is replaced by a Stochastic Hill Climbing (SHC) method.…”

“…The worst solutions are replaced by new randomised ones, which are also evaluated. This cycle is then repeated until ES stage reaches a maximum number of iterations or is unable to find more improved design solutions (for the complete description of the EPSAP algorithm see [54]). Lastly, the whole 3D building is produced by adding height to each storey (measured from the storey floor to the ceiling), extruding rooms for one or more storeys (e.g., a stair serves a range of storeys), positioning the openings in relation to the room floor (i.e., the distance from the floor to the base of the opening) vertically, and giving height to the opening (i.e., the void height in the wall).…”

“…In the following chapter, we present the developed approach for simulating the real 3D cadastral dataset by generating a synthetic dataset using a Hybrid Evolution Strategy [54] as a procedural modelling method to create buildings with different geometries and functional programs. The generated buildings are linked to the Slovenian cadastral data.…”

“…Evolutionary Program for the Space Allocation Problem (EPSAP) algorithm workflow (adapted from ref [54]…”