Interactive AI for Sustainable Architecture
By: Rutvik Deshpande
Tags: AI, Sustainable Development, Architecture, Generative Design, Analysis

I was recently selected for a research internship at one of the most promising and exciting AEC startups — Digital Blue Foam. I was given a chance to use their Augmented Intelligence enhanced software. Here’s an article that describes its features and advantages.

So this software is a web-based interactive generative design tool that gathers urban and climate data from various available web sources. Once you log into the Digital Blue Foam website you get options to load the previous session (not for you if it’s your first time), search bar for searching and locating the site you are looking for designing, and feeling lucky option, which takes you through the tool and guides you about its features (you must select this option if you want to learn about the tool in brief).

Locate and Select Site

Once you search for the location the tool will fetch various datasets and take you to the location where you can draw and edit a polygon. Now you can see your located site in the 3D surrounding map.

You can draw a polygon to select your site

Draw Lines using the Pencil and Eraser

You can draw a random line or a polyline between your plot to divide it into subplots. The pencil has three options: (1) Axis — to assign the axis of the plot; (2)- Park, which creates and assigns the drawn place to park; and (3) a tape measure tool for measuring the line you are drawing.

Upon double-clicking, the click and drag draw a line option the line for subplots is finalized, which can be seen in orange color. Being an interactive software the number of subplots can even be changed in the statistics section, about which I’ll inform you in this article.

Draw tool also has an erase feature in case you want to redraw the lines. Clicking the play button now will generate designs according to the subplots drawn.

Straight as well as curved lines can be drawn to divide the plot

Generate Designs

The play button generates designs. You can pause on the design you like. The step forward and step backward are buttons that will toggle the designs one at a time.

The play button generates many options for the user to choose from.

Program Distribution

This section has input sliders that can be changed to change the ratio of educational, residential, commercial, office, and leisure spaces according to your needs.

If you like the generated design and not the distribution of program spaces you can click on the specific part of the structure which gets highlighted and then you can edit features like the program, floor height, and the number of floors in DBF Assistant. The side arrow keys give you the freedom to move the selected block. Selecting the plots also offers various options like convert the plot to park, parking, or a podium. You can even merge 2 or more plots.

Sustainable Tools

This tool has 3 features:

a) Sun path

This feature helps in the visualization of sun paths and shadows for your site. It also has input date and time for users to select. While designing a building, checking the sun path and shadows is essential as studies have shown that sufficient daylight in space increases one’s productivity and freshness quotient.

b) Wind path

This feature allows you to visualize the direction of the wind with huge arrows.

Wind path is another important factor in sustainable and climate-responsive design. The location of the opening can be chosen according to the wind direction. Also, it helps to analyze the airflow of the plot.

c) Solar radiation

This is the third sustainability tool. The Solar Radiation option does make the designing process a bit slow, but of course, this option helps you to visualize and analyze the distribution of solar radiation throughout your design. It can be beneficial while designing the shading requirements for the structure.

Sun path and Wind Direction can be selected

Statistics Section

This section offers a wide range of targets to choose from. Max Height., Facade Area, Floor Area, Site Area, and other targets can be set by the user. One of my favorite targets among these options is Site Efficiency, which tells you the site efficiency percentage. You can see this target change by changing the subplots and programs. This makes it an interactive and informative tool that has sustainability options to choose from.

Multiple input targets that can be set for the design, which includes Efficiency, GFA, and many more

Viewing Tool

This tool has 3 subtypes:-

a) View — This consists of 4 features:

Orbital view

Toggle view

Option to show cars

Show trees in the plot

b) Plan view — This part also has 4 features:

Plan view

Longitudinal section

Cross-section

Toggle isometric view

All these views are important from an architectural viewpoint.

c) Visualize Data — this subtype has 5 features:

Terrain — to visualize the satellite imagery of the map

Neighborhood programs — Proximity analysis of various nearby facilities

Heatmap

Structural Details

Save and Download

a) You will have slots to save 5 of your designs. These saved designs can be compared using the compare design tool, this compares factors like FAR (Floor Area Ratio), GFA (Gross Floor Area), and Efficiency.

An insightful comparison of up to 5 designs

b) The download button offers 4 options consisting of screenshot, 3D, 2D, and download an excel (.xlsx file) report. The report shows details like floor height, and area for every floor in each program. This file also has input sections like Title, Building Type, Site Area, which can be useful for presentations and documentation.

What I liked most about this tool is the designs are generated on clicking the play button and you can see the targets change their values. When you feel the right target has been achieved then you can pause and save the design. This tool is one of the best-use cases of “AI in AEC”, which helps the user in the optimization of the design efficiently with several input options.

The user interface is easy to use. Having a DBF Assistant makes it simple for the user to get information about the various tools offered. The software also has options like Quick Tips and Tutorials to guide you through the tool.

Progress is impossible without a change and it has become an important factor to change our designing process, We should make it more efficient and sustainable. The way your city looks today will be very different in the coming years, So it is important to optimize your design and analyze its effects on the environment for future generations.

“The future of urban design and project development has arrived” — Digital Blue Foam

Visit digitalbluefoam.com to learn about Digital Blue Foam’s early access program!