Conceptual Structural Design in SEED

TLDR

Few general‑purpose tools exist to help structural designers synthesize configurations for sizing, analysis, and detailing, unlike many tools that analyze pre‑determined structures. The SEED‑Config submodule aims to fill this gap by providing a general‑purpose tool for synthesizing structural configurations. Its process starts with a building massing model, functional requirements, and a toolkit of technologies that generate, rapidly evaluate, and store potential structural system alternatives for future adaptation.

Abstract

Although there are many computer-based tools for analyzing structures whose geometry, topology, and member properties have already been determined, there are very few general-purpose tools to assist structural designers in synthesizing structural configurations to be subsequently sized, analyzed, and detailed. The comceptual-structural-design submodule of the Software Environment to Support the Early Phases in Building Design (SEED-Config) is intended to fill this void. The process starts with a geometric model of the building's massing, a set of functional requirements to be satisfied, and a toolkit of technologies capable of generating potential structural system and subsystem alternatives. Structural alternatives can be rapidly generated under designer control to the level of detail desired and evaluated against a range of criteria. Provisions are made to store design cases as well as to retrieve and adapt these to meet new requirements.