QuickFrame - Structural Framing Design Generator

Intended users:

Structural engineers and architects: quickly generate and visualize early-stage concept designs
Contractors/Estimators: estimate cost (and perhaps construction time)
Sustainability Consultants: estimate embodied carbon

Need finding:

In early stages of a project, engineers and architects often need a quick way to assess the structural feasibility, cost implications, and environmental impact of their designs without performing/waiting for detailed structural analyses.

With the QuickFrame tool, engineers, architects, and users from other related disciplines can quickly generate structural framing and floor plan designs, visualize them, and assess the cost, structural integrity, and embodied carbon of the generated designs.

Inputs:

Material Selection (dropdown with steel, reinforced concrete, and mass timber)
Number of columns in X direction
Number of columns in Y direction
Distance between columns in X direction
Distance between columns in Y direction
Floor-to-floor height
Maximum Beam Span
Column and Beam sizes (cross-sectional area)

Underlying logic of the model:

The QuickFrame tool will take the user’s inputs (most using sliders) and construct a 3D frame in Dynamo/Revit so that the designs can be quickly generated and visualized. First, the tool will place columns using a grid of points, which will be created based on the inputs (number of columns in X and Y direction). The columns will be sized according to the input. Next, beams/girders will be added to connect the columns. After the 3D model is constructed, the tool will use built-in Revit parameters such as height and length to output the material quantities as volumes or weights. Included in the calculation will be industry-average assumptions for the density of each material.

Cost estimates will be made by multiplying the material quantity by industry averages of cost per volume or weight for a particular material. Embodied carbon estimates will be made by multiplying the quantities by emission factors for each material, which will be obtained from reliable sources.

The model currently assumes that the frame will be made of 1 material only, and is rectangular (no angles or unique shapes in the framing plan). However, the logic could be expanded upon to support more complex and unique designs.

Outputs: