Understanding Design Through

Design Support Tools

DRN2005

Bauke de Vries, Henri Achten, Jos van Leeuwen

Content

• Developments of DS group• Results in 2000-2005• Design support: Interfaces• Decision support: Bayesian

networks• JANUS• Retrospective and Prospective

CAAD research

Development of innovative design systems

From explorative: How can we improve design support?

To deductive: How well does the system perform?

Research Programme

• Past: VR-DIS (Virtual Reality – Design Information System)

• Present: DDSS (Design and Decision Support Systems)

DS - Staff

Bauke de Vries (professor)Jos van Leeuwen (associate professor)Henri Achten (assistant professor)Aant van der Zee (assistant professor)Jan Dijkstra (assistant professor)

John Carp: retirementLab. Staff: Joran Jessurun, Sjoerd Buma

Finished PhD projects

Amy Tan (2003) The Reliability and Validity of Interactive Virtual Reality Computer Experiments

Nicole Segers (2004) Computational Representations of Words and Associations in Architectural Design

Maciej Orzechowski (2004) Measuring Housing Preferences using Virtual Reality and Bayesian Belief Networks

Running PhD projects

Jan Dijkstra (2006) Simulation of Pedestrian Flow in Urban Environments

Aant van der Zee (2006) Computer-Aided Evolutionary Architectural Design

Vincent Tabak (2007) User Simulation of Space Utilisation

Jakob Beetz (2007) Multi-Agent Systems for Collaborative Design

Nischal Deshpande (2007) Co-located, Multi-Disciplinary, Collaborative Design Space

Chengyu Sun (2009) Evaluation System of the Evacuation Efficiency for the underground space designs in Shanghai

Related PhD projects

Dima Aliakseyeu (2003) A Computer Support Tool for the Early Stages of Architectural Design

Slava Pranovich (2004) Structural Sketcher: A Tool for Supporting Architects in Early Design

Maxim Ivashkov (2004) ACCEL: A Tool for Supporting Concept Generation in the Early Design Phase.

Shauna Mallory-Hill (2004) Supporting Strategic Design of Workplace Environments with Case-Based Reasoning

DS research

• Design support: Interfaces

• Decision support: Bayesian networks

Design support: Interfaces

Design system classification:

1. Specificity to the architectural domain

2. Versatility of provided support

Design system classification

Basicprimitives

Primitives tailored to the architecture

SpecificityLow

High

Versatility Pro/E

AutoCADSketchUp

Photoshop

Cocktail Napkin

DDDoolz Arch Studio

PaintPen and Paper

ArchiCAD

Home design

ISS SS

Idea Space System (ISS):Digital graphics and annotations

ISS Findings

1. Word graphs are actually applied

2. Word graphs contribute to overcoming periods of inactivity

3. Architects are not equally engaged in verbal design

Structural Sketcher (SS):Designing with graphics units and Relations between them

SS: Kite manipulator

SS Findings

1. SS performs better than other software, but worse than pen & paper

2. A significant reduction of user actions compared to other software

3. Need for ‘doodling’

Decision Support: Bayesian Networks (BN)

BN is a formalism for performing reasoning using partial beliefs under conditions of uncertainty

Case: Measuring housing preferences

BN Housing preferences

Lounge Ext(β1)

Garage Ext(β2)

Extra Kitchen(β3)

2 Bedrooms(β4)

First FloorExt (β5)

DormerWindow (β6)

Choice ofLounge Ext

Choice ofGarage Ext

Choice ofExtra Kitchen

Choice of2 Bedrooms

Choice ofFirst Floor

Ext

Choice ofDormerWindow

Price (γ)

Design experiment

BN findings

1. Differences between the BN predictions and real-life selections decreased

2. Increase of the number of accepted suggestions provided by the BN

Joint Architectural Network for Urban Synergy

(JANUS)

• Public-Private collaboration

• Focus on what should be communicated instead of how

• Participants: Architects, Contractors, Principal, Governmental institutes

Projects

• Digital Dormer

• Digital code checking

• Inline building permits

• ..

Retrospective and Prospective

• DS = between CS – SS

• Experimental results are often not glamorous

• Designers are incapable of specifying their own needs