Jimmy Yang

Step 1 - Generative Design Framework

First, we will look at the three design decisions that were explored:

• Optimal arrangement of parking lot spaces to maximize efficiency and minimize risk
• Design Variables
• The slant of the parking spaces
• Number of lanes
• Number of stories in the parking lot
• Evaluators
• Number of cars that the lot can hold
• Number of one-way roads (safer)
• Amount of plan area required to build the parking lot
• Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
• Slant and the number of cars the lot can hold
• While having a slant would allow cars to enter more easily, thus reducing the number of accidents, it would also take up more room and result in fewer possible total parking spaces
• Number of floors vs construction cost
• Optimal arrangement of seats in a classroom to minimize Covid infection
• Design Variables
• Number of students
• Area of the class
• Arrangement of seats (circular, by rows, diagonal, etc)
• Evaluators
• Number of people in each person’s line of contact
• Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
• Classroom size vs probability of transmission
• Student density vs probability of transmission
• Designing a warehouse to minimize material usage
• Design Variables
• Column spacing
• Beam and column dimensions
• Concrete and steel strength
• Steel reinforcement ratio (how much steel vs how much concrete to use)
• Evaluators
• Amount of steel and concrete in construction
• Amount of open space in the warehouse
• Max deflection in beams and columns
• Max moments and axial forces in beams and columns
• Most Important Tradeoffs to Consider
• Open space and bay spacings vs concrete and steel volume (is there an optimal point where concrete and steel volume are minimized and sufficient space is left for the workers and equipment?)
• Spacing between columns vs moment and axial force demand (what is an acceptable distance between columns such that the force demand is not too large?)
• The ratio of steel reinforcement to concrete volume (how can we choose it so that both are minimized?)

To examine tradeoffs and optimal design solutions, the following outputs were selected (also see above in the last step of the Dynamo chart):

• Total Concrete Volume
• Total Steel Volume
• Total Material Cost
• Max Moment
• Open Area/Volume Ratio

Using the Generative Design tool graphical option, certain trends were noted:

• As was previously hypothesized, the generative design helped to confirm that as the bay sizes increased, the moment and axial loads induced on columns and beams would also increase

• While the general trend was that as concrete volume was inversely proportional to steel volumes (need more steel as concrete reduces), there was one outlier that appeared which required high steel and moderately high concrete. Such cases should be avoided in design as they would result in high costs.

• Some options are able to minimize the forces in the members while keeping the amount of total concrete usage relatively low