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Design Agency

Prototyping Multi-agent Systems in Architecture

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Computer-Aided Architectural Design Futures. The Next City - New Technologies and the Future of the Built Environment (CAAD Futures 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 527))

Abstract

This paper presents research on the prototyping of multi-agent systems for architectural design. It proposes a design exploration methodology at the intersection of architecture, engineering, and computer science. The motivation of the work includes exploring bottom up generative methods coupled with optimizing performance criteria including for geometric complexity and objective functions for environmental, structural and fabrication parameters. The paper presents the development of a research framework and initial experiments to provide design solutions, which simultaneously satisfy complexly coupled and often contradicting objectives. The prototypical experiments and initial algorithms are described through a set of different design cases and agents within this framework; for the generation of façade panels for light control; for emergent design of shell structures; for actual construction of reciprocal frames; and for robotic fabrication. Initial results include multi-agent derived efficiencies for environmental and fabrication criteria and discussion of future steps for inclusion of human and structural factors.

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Acknowledgements

The work has been supported by grants from Autodesk Inc. and the National Science foundation. This project is partly supported by the National Science Foundation funding under the contract 1231001. Any discussion, procedure, result, and conclusion discussed in this paper are the authors’ views and do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions from Ye Tian, Arsalan Heydarian, and Joao P. Carneiro, Jingbo Yan, Yuze Liu and Rheseok Kim.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    David Jason Gerber, Evangelos Pantazis & Leandro Soriano Marcolino

Authors
  1. David Jason Gerber
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  2. Evangelos Pantazis
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  3. Leandro Soriano Marcolino
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Correspondence to David Jason Gerber .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Gabriela Celani

  2. University of São Paulo, São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil

    David Moreno Sperling

  3. University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Juarez Moara Santos Franco

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Gerber, D.J., Pantazis, E., Marcolino, L.S. (2015). Design Agency. In: Celani, G., Sperling, D., Franco, J. (eds) Computer-Aided Architectural Design Futures. The Next City - New Technologies and the Future of the Built Environment. CAAD Futures 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 527. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47386-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47386-3_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-47385-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-47386-3

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