Plastic surgery in the evolutionary design of spatial form

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for producing good solutions for spatial form for non-routine design more efficiently. The methodology is based on augmenting a conventional evolutionary design approach with a method for improving suboptimal design solutions using domain-specific knowledge. This approach is based conceptually on the practice of plastic surgery, i.e. making minor adjustments to an entity, based on some desired qualities. While a conventional evolutionary design approach can produce reasonably good design solutions in an environment of knowledge uncertainty, plastic surgery, using domain-specific knowledge to manipulate the phenotype, can further improve such solutions in an efficient manner. This paper demonstrates how such a technique can be applied to the generation of spatial form. © 2007 Springer.