Co-Design and Agent-Based Methods for Multi-Storey Wood Building Systems

2021 - 2024| Doctoral Research
German Research Foundation (EXC 2120/1)

Luis Orozco

Co-Design and Agent-Based Methods for Multi-Storey Wood Building Systems

Timber, the most widely used natural material in the construction industry, can sequester carbon as it grows and store it in the built environment. However, due to the logistically mandated orthogonal shape of raw and conventionally prefabricated Engineered Wood Products and the limited single spans they can achieve, most contemporary timber buildings currently only have one of a restricted set of uses, with little possibility for reuse. This limits timber's utility in urban environments, which often require filling in irregular sites and extending existing structures. It also limits the building industry's potential environmental contributions. These restrictions could be overcome by using interdisciplinary organisational and computational design methods.

This research investigates new ways to design wood buildings through improved cross-discipline collaboration. First, it evaluates co-design as a means of integrating different disciplines throughout the design process by applying it to the design of a prototype building. Then, it proposes agent-based methods for procedurally and interactively negotiating between conflicting sets of optimisation criteria. Agent-based simulations were developed for the placement of columns, the subdivision of floor plates into fabricable and transportable slab segments, and the reinforcement of these segments with internal members. These developments built upon a framework for timber building systems and their data structures. These methods were then tested on the design and fabrication of timber buildings across a range of scales and resolutions.

This research demonstrates that innovative computational and organisational methods can results in an increased design space for multi-storey timber buildings. This results in an expanded palette of building types, and an increased contribution by the building sector to the global environmental and humanitarian housing crises.

PROJECT TEAM

ICD Institute for Computational Design and Construction, University of Stuttgart

Luis Orozco, Prof. A. Menges

PROJECT FUNDING

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)

Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC) EXC 2120/1

 

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Orozco, L., Svatoš-Ražnjević, H., Wagner, H. J., Abdelaal, M., Amtsberg, F., Weiskopf, D., Menges, A.: 2023, Advanced Timber Construction Industry: A Quantitative Review of 646 Global Design and Construction Stakeholders. Buildings, vol. 13, no. 9, pp. 2287. (DOI: 10.3990/buildings13092287)

Orozco, L., Wagner, H. J., Krtschil, A., Knippers, J., Menges, A.: 2023, Computational Segmentation of Timber Slabs with Free Column Placement. CAD Journal, vol. 168, 103650. (DOI: 10.1016/j.cad.2023.103650)

Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Wagner, H. J., Bechert, S., Amtsberg, F., Knippers, J., Menges, A.: 2023, Co-Design Methods for Non-standard Multi-Storey Timber Buildings. Sustainability, vol. 15, no. 23, p. 16178 (DOI: 10.3390/su152316178)

Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Skoury, L., Knippers, J., Menges, A.: 2022, Arrangement of reinforcement in variable density timber slab systems for multi-story construction. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 20(4), pp.707--727. (DOI: 10.1177/14780771221135003)

Krtschil, A., Orozco, L., Wagner, H. J., Menges, A., Knippers, J.: 2023, Structural Performance and Nesting Efficiency of segmented, point-supported, slabs for co-designed timber architecture. Structures, 57, 105260. (DOI: 10.1016/j.istruc.2023.105260)

Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Wagner, H. J., Bechert, S., Amtsberg, F., Skoury, L., Knippers, J., Menges, A.: 2021, Design Methods for Variable Density, Multi-Directional Composite Timber Slab Systems for Multi-Storey. In V. Stojakovic & B. Tepavcevic (eds.), Proceedings of the 39th eCAADe Conference, pp. 303--312. (DOI: 10.52842/conf.ecaade.2021.1.303)

Udaykumar, K., Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Menges, A., Knippers, J.: 2023, Interactive Gradient-Based Optimization Method for Column-slab Structures. In Xie, Y. M., Burry, J., Lee, T. U., & Ma, J. (Eds.), Integration of Design and Fabrication: Proceedings of the IASS 2023 Conference, pp. 1574-1584. International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS).

Svatoš-Ražnjević, H., Krtschil, A., Orozco, L., Neubauer, G., Knippers, J., Menges, A.: 2023, Towards Design Flexibility and Freedom In Multi-Storey Timber Construction: Architectural Applications of a Novel, Adaptive Hollow Slab Building System. In K. A. Malo, A. Q. Nyrud, & K. Nore (Eds.),World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2023) (pp. 3905–3916). (DOI: 10.52202/069179-0508)

Svatoš-Ražnjević, H., Orozco, L., Menges, A.: 2022, Advanced Timber Construction Industry: A Review of 350 Multi-Storey Timber Projects from 2000–2021. Buildings, vol. 12, no. 4. (DOI: 10.3390/buildings12040404)

Krtschil, A., Orozco, L., Bechert, S., Wagner, H.J., Amtsberg, F., Chen, T.-Y., Shah, A., Menges, A., Knippers, J.: 2022, Structural development of a novel punctually supported timber building system for multi-storey construction. Journal of Building Engineering, 58, p.104972. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2022.104972)

Sahin, E. S., Locatelli, D., Orozco, L., Krtschil, A., Wagner, H. J., Menges, A., Knippers, J.: 2023, Feedback-Based Design Method for Spatially-Informed and Structurally-Performative Column Placement in Multi-Story Construction. In: Yan, C., Chai, H., Sun, T., Yuan, P.F. (eds) Phygital Intelligence. CDRF 2023. Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication. Springer, Singapore. (DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-8405-3_5)

Krtschil, A., Orozco, L., Wagner, H. J., Menges, A., Knippers, J.: 2022, Conceptual development and comparison of two punctually supported timber slab systems. In Doktorandenkolloquium Holzbau Forschung + Praxis. Symposium conducted at the meeting of KE University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

This image shows Luis Orozco

Luis Orozco

AIA, M.Arch., B.Sc.Arch.

Research Associate

To the top of the page