Concurrent Geometric, Structural and Environmental Design: Louvre Abu Dhabi

Abstract

Sophisticated contemporary design projects are constrained by the multi-objective requirements of architects, engineers, and specialty consultants. The Louvre Abu Dhabi represents a step forward in the concurrent engineering of multi-objective geometry conditions for environmentally informed envelope design. The project takes advantage of associative and generative modeling technology to create a framework for multi-constraint problems in which all stakeholders can embed their own requirements and design rules in a real-time and collaborative way. At the same time, the creation of a globally shared, web-hosted, versioned model provides a dramatically more open and transparent way for designers and engineers to converge toward a shared solution for the geometric and environmental challenges. Thus the Louvre Abu Dhabi provides a case study for a new concurrent design approach to multi-constraint geometric problems in architecture.