Embedding methods for massing and detail design in computer generated design of skyscrapers

Abstract

This thesis proposes a new digital system to construct the massing and details of skyscrapers. It extracts underlying rules and design conventions from significant projects in contemporary skyscraper design practice. These rules and conventions are translated into digital data and embedded in a system. The thesis demonstrates how to use this system to reconstruct original designs as well as to generate new ones by means of transformation rules. It takes examples from the built skyscraper projects of Cesar Pelli and Associates as well as Norman Foster and Partners, and embeds their conventions and components to illustrate an implementation of such a system. In contemporary skyscraper design, sophisticated computer models are constructed in advanced engineering systems for the use of engineering analysis, but they contribute very little to the conceptual design of skyscrapers.

(cont.) The goal of this thesis is to propose embedded methods as an alternative approach and to develop a digital system that can both handle complex forms and enable architects to work more efficiently in the early stages of the design process. The intention behind building such a system is to relieve architects from the repetitive work that is required by conventional CAD systems as well as to allow them to carry their previous expertise--well-established stylistic conventions and approved components--into the design of new skyscrapers.