Evolutionary Computation and Parametric Pattern Generation for Airport Terminal Design

It is without doubt that airport terminals are some of the most com- plex building types in existence. Their scale, the nature of their func- tions, the strict security measures as well as the function-specific components and building equipment that is present in such build- ings are all factors that increase their level of complexity as a build- ing type. In a real design situation, dealing with the variety of design param- eters that the design of an airport terminal incorporates can be a dif- ficult task to manage and may sometimes become an impediment to the design process. Furthermore, solely because of the enormous amount of possible design solutions that exists even for a relatively small set of design parameters1, the discovery of optimal or near optimal solutions through a traditional design approach is not guar- anteed to happen. Given these assumptions, it has been proposed within the con- text of this project that the design of layouts for airport terminals be addressed by the use of computation-based design methods, specifically Parametric Modelling in combination with evolutionary algorithms, The combination of parametric modelling and evolutionary algorithms has been used consecutively in two scales: First in order to search for optimality regarding the layout of the terminal, and with regard to multiple design goals (accessibility, cost, sustainability, re- tail performance). A Multi Objective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA) is used to produce a series of Pareto Optimal solutions, out of which one is selected. Second, a parametric envelope system is applied to the selected layout, and it’s defining parameters are once again optimized, this time with regard to view, sunshading and material usage. Within the context of the project a case study has been performed which focuses on the design of a new terminal at the new Inter- national Airport site in Doha, Qatar. The flexibility of the proposed method allowed for the incorporation of site-specific evaluation cri- teria into the parametric model, allowing for an optimal site-specific solution to be generated, both in terms of layout and of building envelope.

Subject

evolutionary algorithms
airport layout
grasshopper
parametric design

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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:78ae579b-0c3a-424e-981b-b2227a2be058

Embargo date

2011-07-13

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Student theses

Document type

master thesis

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