Paneling architectural freeform surfaces

Abstract

The emergence of large-scale freeform shapes in architecture poses big challenges to the fabrication of such structures. A key problem is the approximation of the design surface by a union of patches, socalled panels, that can be manufactured with a selected technology at reasonable cost, while meeting the design intent and achieving the desired aesthetic quality of panel layout and surface smoothness. The production of curved panels is mostly based on molds.Since the cost of mold fabrication often dominates the panel cost, there is strong incentive to use the same mold for multiple panels. We cast the major practical requirements for architectural surface paneling, including mold reuse, into a global optimization framework that interleaves discrete and continuous optimization steps to minimize production cost while meeting user-specified quality constraints. The search space for optimization is mainly generated through controlled deviation from the design surface and tolerances on positional and normal continuity between neighboring panels. A novel 6-dimensional metric space allows us to quickly compute approximate inter-panel distances, which dramatically improves the performance of the optimization and enables the handling of complex arrangements with thousands of panels. The practical relevance of our system is demonstrated by paneling solutions for real, cutting-edge architectural freeform design projects.

Architectural geometry

“…Subproblem (iii) contains a version of set cover; it is therefore provably hard, and finding the optimum is out of reach for today's computing power. The method of [30] has been applied to the paneling of the Arena Corinthians in Sao Paolo, cf. [87].…”

Geometric optimization of constructive processes in Sagrada Familia: Ruled surfaces and freeform shapes discretization

“…El primer parámetro es la desviación (ds) del plano base de la pieza respecto la superficie de colocación. Este parámetro queda definido por la distancia entre el baricentro del plano base de la pieza y el punto normal a la superficie [3]. El segundo parámetro es la desviación (dp) que presenta el cuarto punto de la piezadespués de orientarla a partir de sus tres primeros puntosrespecto las curvas guía (Imagen 4).…”

Optimal cold bending of laminated glass

“…Cold bending into a double curved shape is also possible (Beer, 2013;Galuppi et al, 2014), but since this produces high membrane stress, single-curvature bending remains the most used technique, also because recent advances in theoretical algorithms allow for the discretization of any surface using single curvature panels only. Therefore, large double-curvature glazing of any form can be approximated by cylindrically bent panels (Pottmann et al, 2008;Eigensatz et al, 2010).…”