Building Your Own Urban Tool Kit

Concept
Utilizing parametric BIM components
as smart early design tools for large-scale urban planning

Caner Dolas, Andreas Dieckmann & Peter Russell
eCAADe 2013
Building Your Own Urban Tool Kit
Why Conduct Urban Design in a BIM Application?
Design inside the "software comfort zone" of the architect
Utilize parametric & analytical capabilities of BIM software
BIM to CIM is only a matter of time anyway
Project Goals
Component-based workflow
Rapid large-scale distribution of components
Tabular reports
Visual filtering
Exploration of design alternatives
Chosen Platform:
Autodesk Revit
Components
The body and mind of the Urban Tool Kit
Define the methods and structures of the solution
Approach
Zweckentfremdung:
To divert something from its original use
Model city blocks as mass surfaces
Subdivide city blocks into parcel grid
Populate parcel grid with building components
Modeling
Workflow
Patterning
Manual alterations
Patterning with Divide & Repeat
Reactor patterns with context-aware adaptive components
Analysis
Tabular reports
Filtered views
Further analysis
Rule-based
Manual
Components
Dynamo
Autodesk's open source
visual programming environment
for the Revit platform
Example #1:
Two-Point Reactor
Drive the heights of buildings by determining their proximity to specified reference points in the project
Example #2:
Pattern Recognition
Drive the building component types by processing an image with a placement pattern
Recent Work
http://caad.arch.rwth-aachen.de
http://www.dynamobim.org
Reference Patterns
Input
Processing
Input
Processing
Output
Output
Data I/O
=
Component Requirements
Component Nesting Structure
Duality (Body + Mind)
Mind (Analysis)
Body (Geometry)
Site Constraints
Value Output
Geometry Controlling Output
Building Form
Building Size
Automatic size control on failure
User Input
Building Dimensions
Setback
Plot Area Ratio (PAR)
Floor-to-floor height
Usage type
Building Orientation
Building footprint
Building volume
Cubic index
etc.