This paper proposes a simple parametric system to generate an almost complete set of ruled surfaces that may be used to describe building geometry. The major classes of regular, named ruled surfaces can be generated from a limited set of curves. Each of these is shown to be reducible to a transformation of a single standard curve, a helix, and therefore represented by a limited set of six parameters.

Author: Elena Prosalidou
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of CAAD Futures 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

Over the years the world has been characterized by a rapidly growth in urbanization. As a consequence, cities all over the world continue to grow at an unparalleled rate to be able to absorb the increasing in urbanization.

Author: Kinda Al Sayed
Author: Alasdair Turner
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. (pp. p. 1). Royal Institute of Technology (KTH): Stockholm, Sweden | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

The ability of evolutionary algorithms and related search techniques to explore a varied space of solutions with efficiency and often surprising innovation makes them useful tools for design. This typically requires the explicit definition of a goal or objective function and so has been ideally suited to engineering optimisation tasks. For many design problems however, and particularly for those of great complexity, it is difficult to specify such a goal in advance. Design and creativity themselves, particularly in a social context, are often seen as processes of guided, but open exploration. Steels has shown that effective languages can be generated without an external measure of quality by allowing robots to speak and evaluate each other in an environment. Such approaches have been incorporated into genetic algorithms by allowing the objective to change over time.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication:Proceedings of GECCO '07: Genetic And Evolutionary Computation Conference | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

Designed artefacts may be quantified by any number of measures. This paper aims to show that in doing so, the particular measures used may matter very little, but as many as possible should be taken. A set of building plans is used to demonstrate that arbitrary measures of their shape serve to classify them into neighbourhood types, and the accuracy of classification increases as more are used, even if the dimensionality of the space in which classification occurs is held constant.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '10. (pp. 115 - 134). Springer: London, UK | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

In the course of the exploration of computational means in the architectural design process, in order to investigate more complex, adaptive geometries, the Voronoi diagram has recently gained some attention, being a three-dimensional space-filling structure which is modular but not repetitive. The project looks at the Voronoi diagram as a load-bearing structure, and whether it can be useful for structural optimisation.

Author: Eva Friedrich
Author: Christian Derix
Author:Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings Generative Art 10th International Conference, Milan Polytechnic, Milan | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

Structural optimisation in this case refers to the branch of engineering in which a physical structure is optimised with respect to certain performance criteria. Finite element methods are one technique to facilitate structural optimisation whilst also allowing visualisations and acting, generally, as a good design tool.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Siavash Haroun Mahdavi

Publication: Gero, JS (ed) Design Computing and Cognition '06. Springer. pp 563-582 | (full text) PDF

Year: 2006

Structural optimization is usually handled by iterative methods requiring repeated samples of a physics-based model, but this process can be computationally demanding. Given a set of previously optimized structures of the same topology, this paper uses inductive learning to replace this optimization process entirely by deriving a function that directly maps any given load to an optimal geometry. A support vector machine is trained to determine the optimal geometry of individual modules of a space frame structure given a specified load condition.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing archive Volume 21 Issue 4, October 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

In nature, species have evolved to best suit their niches. Monkeys have evolved to have long arms and dextrous hands that enable them to climb trees and pick fruit. Lions, on the other hand, have evolved to be strong and fast so as to most effectively catch prey in the open savannah. Each species has therefore evolved in order to best cope with typical tasks that are encountered. This can be thought of as optimising to a narrow range of tasks. Human beings have the ability to live almost anywhere. Even early man was found in nearly all climates and surroundings. He is not the strongest, nor fastest, and he is not especially good at climbing trees either. What he has is the ability to think. Moreover, the ability to use tools to transform his body into what is needed for the environment. Weapons for hunting allow him to exceed the lion’s power, and clothing can keep him warm in otherwise inhospitable climates. Therefore he has a very wide range of skills, though none are of great magnitude.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Mahdavi S Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of ICARCV 2004 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

Applied studies in the area of urban growth have often focused on the apparent physical silhouette of urban form in modelling and simulating city growth. This paper is intended to go beyond such limitations and present a model based on observed dynamics of change in urban structures. Thus the paper translates the spatial laws which govern the process of urban morphogenesis in cities into mathematical rules which represent the change in the configurational structure of street networks. For this purpose, a set of analyses will be made for the sequential development of urban street network in Manhattan.

Author: Kinda Al Sayed
Author: Alasdair Turner
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication:Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning | full text (PDF)

Year:2010

In this paper, we introduce a technique by which the internal material properties of an object can be optimised at a microstructural level (5x10-5m) to counteract the forces that are applied to it. These can then be fabricated using the rapid prototyping method of stereolithography. The proposed technique is analogous to principles of mass customization and takes advantage of a flexible module to create complex structures in a manner that is computationally efficient and effective.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Mahdavi S. Haroun
Author:Mahdavi S. Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture and the 2004 conference of the AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Knowledge Community | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

Optimisation techniques are used by engineers to design structures to satisfy many criteria, such as high strength or low weight. Recent advances in computer controlled manufacturing technology have also allowed the construction of such structures to be automated, so that the machine plays a significant role in both design and building processes. The work in this paper investigates optimisation of a microstructure suited to a rapid prototyping technology known as stereo lithography that is capable of construction at a high resolution, currently around 0.05mm. Our technique is based on the seamless repetition of a tiny structural module over a large volume such that the overall object behaves as a continuous material. It is, in effect, operating at a scale between traditional large-scale manufacturing and nanotechnology.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Madhavi S. Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of SCIS & ISIS 2004. The Joint 2nd International Conference on Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems and 5th International Symposium on Advanced Intelligent Systems | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

File to factory processes, direct fabrication and the technologies that drive them are often described by a number of perceived outcomes.

• First, they seem to be flexible throughout the process of design. By controlling designs parametrically, many design decisions can be deferred to a later point in the process, adjusted by altering parameters at any time.
• Second, they appear to provide a unique ability to create non-standard architecture. Individual elements may be entirely unique, and change in every instance of their application.
• Finally, the resulting products of construction are highly complex, and this results both in an unprecedented ability to adapt to functional requirements and to a new aesthetic in its own right.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of International Symposium File to Factory 2010

Year: 2010

Aperiodic tiling patterns result in endlessly varied local configurations of a limited set of basic polygons, and as such may be used to economically produce non-repeating, complex forms from a minimal set of modular elements. Several well-known tilings, such as by Penrose (2D) and Danzer (3D) have been used in architecture, but these are only two examples of an infinite set of possible tilings that can be generated by the projection in two or three dimensions of high dimensional grids subject to rotations.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Olivier Ottevaere

Publication: The 2009 international conference of the Association of Computer Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA09): reForm() | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

Style is a broad term that could potentially refer to any features of a work, as well as a fluid concept that is subject to change and disagreement. The idea of a style in any discipline is a fluid concept that is always subject to change, and therefore suited to a flexible representation. What is suggested here is that it can nevertheless be accurately represented and emulated. This work has presented an algorithmic method for both deriving a stylistic definition automatically from examples, and using it to generate new designs. Architectural examples were used, and were investigated primarily in terms of their spatial features, but it is intended as a general model in that other forms of input and classification algorithms may be used. Likewise, axial analysis and the aggregation model are not essential to the method, but the principles of feature space reduction and archetype should apply to a variety of analysis and synthesis techniques.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '06. Springer. pp. 3-22 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

Visionary designers and fiction writers speculate today about a future environment of nanotechnology and 'smart dust', able to create its form in response to external factors, or with an apparent will of its own. Although the manipulation of individual molecules on such a scale is still firmly in the realm of science fiction, this talk presents current research that makes this a reality at the millimetre, rather than the nanometre scale.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Beesley P, Hirosue S, Ruxton J, Turner C and Trankle M (eds) Responsive Architectures: Subtle Technologies 2006, Riverside Architectural Press. ISBN: 0-9780978-0-7

Year: 2006

While business to customer (B2C) mass customization has been discussed mainly from the producers’ perspective, researchers have reported a lack of sufficient literature examining the topic from customers’ perspective. This paper provides a review of configurators with user experience in mind. We first discuss terms such as: personalization, customization, optimization, design and innovation. We then use these terms to discuss definitions of configurators’ features such as: solution space, type of customers’ input, linearity, product visualization method and types of recommendations.

Author: Michal Piasecki
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization 2009

Year: 2009

Design problems, if they can be called problems at all, are complex. Disciplines such as architecture and planning are described as dealing almost exclusively with situa-tions in which the brief is relatively ill -defined relative to the real range of problem considerations, the perception of the problem itself may change radically as design progresses, and the solution is typically arrived at by a unique process that cannot be predicted in advance.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '10 Workshop on Assessing the Impact of Complexity Science in Design: Alexiou K and Zamenopoulos T (eds.) | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

The spectrum of an axial graph is proposed as a means for comparison between spaces, particularly for measuring between very large and complex graphs. A number of methods have been used in recent years for comparative analysis within large sets of urban areas, both to investigate properties of specific known types of street network or to propose a taxonomy of urban morphology based on an analytical technique.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH): Stockholm, Sweden | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

The problem being addressed relates to the filling of a certain volume with a structural space frame network lattice consisting of a given number of nodes. A method is proposed that comprises a generative algorithm including a physical dynamic simulation of particle-spring system. The algorithm is able to arrange nodes in space and establish connections among them through local rules of self-organisation, thus producing space frame topologies.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: A Kanellos

Publication: Proceedings of the 26th eCAADe Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe 2008

Year: 2008