The Modular Back-to-Back House –An Interactive Generative Methodologyfor the Design of a Lifetime Home

Abstract

The research proposes the building of half a house akin to historic ‘back-to-back’ housing, withthe remaining ‘half’ built over the remaining lifetime of the owner, providing versatile andadaptable room and spaces for the life changes of the owner. The method is based on a uniqueAutodesk Generative Design defi nition providing a multi-objective design generation algorithmfor creating design iterations for the unbuilt future ‘half’. Each homeowner is able to then navigatethe thousands of design options generated to evaluate the potential cost of changes to the fabric(linked to the SPONS cost guide) of the house based on their individual lifetime changes; marriage,children, illness, dementia etc., to improve forward fi nancial planning. The work evaluates theeff ectiveness of the algorithm output through a series of comparisons with established ‘lifetimehome’ case studies. Keywords: generative, housing, modular, lifetime, planning, automated, algorithm, costing, house