Industry
Integration of Sustainability Issues during Early Design Stages in a Global Supply Chain Context
Olson, Elizabeth C. (The Pennsylvania State University) | Haapala, Karl R. (Oregon State University) | Okudan, Gül E. (The Pennsylvania State University)
A method is introduced to incorporate sustainability considerations in the early design stages, while simultaneously accounting for supply chain factors, such as cost and lead time. Overall, this work is our first step in understanding the trade-offs between sustainability metrics and more traditional supply chain performance metrics (i.e., cost and lead time). Based on our understanding of these trade-offs, we intend to help build computational artificial intelligence tools that can exploit these trade-offs for improved customization in produc
Causal Knowledge Network Integration for Life Cycle Assessment
Kim, Yun Seon (Wayne State University) | Choi, Keunho (Wayne State University) | Kim, Kyoung-Yun (Wayne State University)
Sustainability requires emphasizing the importance of environmental causes and effects among design knowledge from heterogeneous stakeholders to make a sustainable decision. Recently, such causes and effects have been well developed in ontological representation, which has been challenged to generate and integrate multiple domain knowledge due to its domain specific characteristics. Moreover, it is too challengeable to represent heterogeneous, domain-specific design knowledge in a standardized way. Causal knowledge can meet the necessity of knowledge integration in domains. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a causal knowledge integration system with the authors’ previous mathematical causal knowledge representation.
Propagating Uncertainty in Solar Panel Performance for Life Cycle Modeling in Early Stage Design
Honda, Tomonori (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | Chen, Heidi Q. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | Chan, Kennis Y. (ATAC Corporation) | Yang, Maria C. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
One of the challenges in accurately applying metrics for life cycle assessment lies in accounting for both irreducible and inherent uncertainties in how a design will perform under real world conditions. This paper presents a preliminary study that compares two strategies, one simulation-based and one set-based, for propagating uncertainty in a system. These strategies for uncertainty propagation are then aggregated. This work is conducted in the context of an amorphous photovoltaic (PV) panel, using data gathered from the National Solar Radiation Database, as well as realistic data collected from an experimental hardware setup specifically for this study. Results show that the influence of various sources of uncertainty can vary widely, and in particular that solar radiation intensity is a more significant source of uncertainty than the efficiency of a PV panel. This work also shows both set-based and simulation-based approaches have limitations and must be applied thoughtfully to prevent unrealistic results. Finally, it was found that aggregation of the two uncertainty propagation methods provided faster results than either method alone.
Opportunities for AI to Improve Sustainable Building Design Processes
Haymaker, John R. (Design Process Innovation)
Sustainable building design is a complex social and technical process in which a broad range of stakeholders must construct and clearly communicate high quality design spaces. This paper summarizes recent assessments of current practice that illustrate how far industry today is from achieving this quality and clarity. Efforts to develop a platform of tools to address these limitations are discussed. PIP helps people communicate, share, and understand collaborative design processes; MACDADI helps project teams identify and manage rationale and consensus on decisions; Design Scenarios helps them generate requirements-driven alternative spaces, BIM, model-based analysis, and PIDO which helps to systematically assess these alternatives for their energy, daylight, structural, and cost impacts; and iRooms and the web, which help to communicate all of this information to engage designers, stakeholders, and decision makers in fast, multidisciplinary design and analysis processes. This new platform considerably improves the quality and clarity of AEC design spaces. However additional work would enable significant additional improvement. The paper concludes with a proposal for how AI might further improve the performance of this platform.
Automating Environmental Impact Assessment during the Conceptual Phase of Product Design
Haapala, Karl R. (Oregon State University) | Poppa, Kerry R. (Oregon State University) | Stone, Robert B. (Oregon State University) | Tumer, Irem Y. (Oregon State University)
Thus, design knowledge and a description of the desired product existing product environmental impact assessment to automatically synthesize potential solutions. This work approaches are most beneficial to implementing changes focuses on a morphological matrix based approach that during the detailed design phase. In addition, impacts due operates on information stored in a design repository to to materials choices, manufacturing processes utilized, and output high-level descriptions of possible solutions. The transportation of an existing product can be evaluated and following section describes the data source and concept reduced. It has been recognized, however, that generation algorithm.
Knowledge Based Integration of Sustainability Issues in the (Re)Design Process
Erbas, Irem (Delft University of Technology) | Stouffs, Rudi (Delft University of Technology) | Sariyildiz, Sevil (Delft University of Technology)
The research project here described aims to contribute to the issue of sustainability of buildings by improving the architectural design process with the development of a decision support tool for the architect. In particular, the research adopts the improvement of existing designs, namely encouraging energy-efficient redesigns while improving indoor environmental quality as its strategy to promote sustainability. Redesign strategy is considered not only to extend the life cycle of a building but also to contribute to the realization of the overall transition towards an efficient and clean climate. The starting point for this research is the question of how to develop an integral framework which enables the modelling of design knowledge through more energy-efficient dwellings with acceptable indoor comfort in the sustainability context so that it would be possible to deal with qualitative, quantitative, complex and contradictory information at the same time and integrate these into design decision-making processes. This modelling approach is considered to provide a link to developing a tool or a link to be embedded in an existing tool. In the development of such an approach, how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can facilitate an integral understanding of the aspects is raised as a methodological question in terms of information processing and knowledge integration in the form of a design decision support tool. By this way it will be possible to assess the performance of the end result with respect to design choices, beforehand.
Better Resource Usage through Biomimetic Symbiotic Principles for Host and Derivative Product Synthesis
Davis, Matthew Louis Turner (Texas A&M University) | McAdams, Daniel Arthur (Texas A&M University) | Wadia, Anosh Porus (Texas A&M University)
In recent years, numerous methods to aid designers in conceptualizing new products have been developed. These methods intend to give structure to a process that was, at one time, considered to be a purely creative exercise. Resulting from the study, implementation, and refinement of design methodologies is the notion that both the structure of the development process and the structure of the developed product are key factors in creating value in a firm’s product line. With respect to the latter key factor, product architecture, but more specifically, modular product architecture has been the subject of much study. This research is focused on two tasks: advancing the notion of a modular product architecture in which modules can be incorporated into a product ‘post-market,’ and creating a method that aids designers leverage knowledge of natural symbiotic relationships to synthesize these post-market modules. It adds to prior work by first, defining the terms ‘derivative product’ and ‘host product’ to describe the post-market module and the product that the module augments, respectively. Second, by establishing three guidelines that are used to assess the validity of potential derivative products, giving the newly termed host and derivative product space defined boundaries. And lastly, by developing a 7-step, biomimetic-based methodology that can be used to create derivative product concepts (post-market modules). By using this methodology, the engineered products are designed on symbiotic principles found in nature.
CBArch: A Case-Based Reasoning Framework for Conceptual Design of Commercial Buildings
Cavieres, Andres (Georgia Institute of Technology) | Bhatia, Urjit (Georgia Institute of Technology) | Joshi, Preetam (Georgia Institute of Technology) | Zhao, Fei (Georgia Institute of Technology) | Ram, Ashwin ( Georgia Institute of Technology )
The paper describes the first phase of development of a Case-Base Reasoning (CBR) system to support early conceptual design of buildings. As specific context of application, the research focuses on energy performance of commercial buildings, and the early identification of energy-related features that contribute to its outcomes. The hypothesis is that bringing knowledge from relevant precedents may facilitate this identification process, thus offering a significant contribution for early analysis and decision-making. The paper introduces a proof-of-concept for such a system, proposing a novel integration of Case-Based Reasoning, Parametric Modeling (Building Information Modeling), and Ontology Classification. Potential advantages and limitations of this three-level integration approach are discussed along with recommendations for future development.
Generation of Energy-Efficient Patio Houses: Combining GENE_ARCH and a Marrakesh Medina Shape Grammar
Caldas, Luisa (Technical University of Lisbon)
GENE_ARCH is a Generative Design System that combines Pareto Genetic Algorithms with an advanced energy simulation engine. This work explores its integration with a Shape Grammar, acting as GENE_ARCH’s shape generation module. The islamic patio house typology is readdressed in a contemporary context, by improving its energy-efficiency, and rethinking its role in the genesis of high-density urban areas, while respecting its specific spatial organization and cultural grounding. Field work was carried out in Marrakesh, surveying a number of patio houses, becoming the Corpus of Design, from where a shape grammar was generated. The computational implementation of the patio house grammar was done within GENE_ARCH. The resulting program was able to generate new, alternative patio houses designs that were more energy efficient, while respecting the traditional rules captured from the analysis of existing houses. After the computational system was fully implemented, it was possible to realise a large number of experiments. The first experiments kept more restrained rules, thus generating new designs that closer resembled the existing ones. The progressive relaxation of rules and constraints allowed for a larger number of variations to emerge. Analysis of energy results provide insight into the main patterns resulting from the GA search processes.
Smart Homes or Smart Occupants? Reframing Computational Design Models for the Green Home
Bartram, Lyn (Simon Fraser University) | Woodbury, Rob (Simon Fraser University)
Buildings designed around occupant A sustainable home is more than a green building: it is also intelligence will provide flexible, adaptive task a living experience that encourages occupants to use fewer environments, refined control zones and technologies that resources more effectively. Research has shown that small maximize occupants' access to adaptive opportunities changes in behaviour in how we use our homes, such as (Cole & Brown, 2009). Architects, engineers and system turning off lights, reducing heat and uncovering or designers are faced with the challenge of reframing design covering windows, or shortening showers, can result in strategies as a co-evolution of human and building substantial energy and water savings. But changing the intelligence that will encourage as well as underpin way we use resources is proving challenging.