Enabling optimisation-based exploration for building massing design: A coding-free evolutionary building massing design toolkit in rhino-grasshopper

Abstract

This paper presents an evolutionary design toolkit for performance-based building massing design optimisation. The toolkit is aimed to assist architects in exploring a wide range of building massing design alternatives guided by various performance objectives, thereby encouraging architects to incorporate evolutionary design optimisation for enriching design ideation at the outset of the design process. The toolkit is implemented in the Rhino-Grasshopper environment and includes components of a diversity-guided evolutionary algorithm and two pre-defined parametric models capable of generating a wide range of massing designs. The evolutionary algorithm can yield diverse design variants from the optimisation process and present more informative results with higher design differentiation. The pre-defined parametric models require minimal customisation from the architects. By using the toolkit, architects can readily explore high-performing building design with performance-based design optimisation with ease, and the coding-free optimisation workflow also streamlines the design process.