Massing and Enclosure Design with SEED-Config

Abstract

SEED-Config supports, in three dimensions, the schematic design of building forms and technical systems. It provides a uniform interface and computational mechanism in which to implement a variety of form making and technological design capabilities. In operation, it assists a designer in discovering potentially applicable design operations, the alternative designs that can be generated by applying operations and the previously created designs that might apply to the current design problem. Like the rest of SEED, SEED-Config represents designs as functional units that are realized or allocated by design units. A design problem is represented as a design that has unallocated functional units. SEED-Config acts through the application of technologies to allocate functional units and to further develop the functional units of the current design problem. In the most general terms, a technology is a collection of computational mechanisms to create and instantiate design and functional units satisfying the requirements of a class of functional units in a design context, based on specific construction technology or form generation principles. Using SEED-Config, we are developing technologies that create: (1) Three-dimensional building massings from schematic layouts; (2) enclosure systems around building massings; and (3) structural systems within a building massing. We discuss the first two technologies here. Technologies for building massing address architectural issues of visual composition and style. Technologies for building enclosures rely on established types of enclosure design. We use one such type, airtight insulated rainscreen enclosures, to demonstrate enclosure technologies.