A Super-structure Based Optimisation Approach for Building Spatial Designs

Building design can be supported effectively by computer-aided design exploration. This paper investigates optimisation based on a mixed-integer super-structure representation of the search space of building spatial designs. It can take into account parametric as well as topological variations. In the suggested super-structure – the so-called supercube representation – discrete and continuous variables determine the existence, respectively, dimensioning of spaces of the building spatial design. Constraints are formulated as closed form equations and can be used to numerically assess the feasibility of designs. A population-based constraint-handling evolutionary strategy is developed. In the constraint handling repair and penalty methods are combined in a domain specific way. The method is tested on different search space sizes and first promising results are reported. Koen van der Blom, Sjonnie Boonstra, Hèrm Hofmeyer and Michael T. M. Emmerich