The Hendrickx-Vanwalleghem design strategy

Abstract

The optimisation of structures and materials is a justifiably popular engineering topic. Contemporary research is concentrated, among others, into cost minimisation, structural efficiency and intelligence, in compliance with environmental and social preservation. As a counterpart this paper puts the accent on the time dependent aspect of constructions, such as the life cycle cost, the possibility to make (non-) structural changes and recycling or reuse of building material. In search of an optimisation of this 'dynamic' efficiency of constructions, a design strategy has been developed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Departments of MeMC and ARCH). This strategy is presented here. It considers the temporal character of constructions from the first sketches onwards.