Structural workflows and the art of parametric design

This paper describes the digital parametric design and fabrication optimisation used on the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies building in Doha, Qatar.

This article describes how cutting edge parametric-based engineering techniques have been used for the City of Dreams hotel in Macau, China.

This article will discuss the principal concepts of design optimisation, then look at the various suitable techniques and make suggestions as to where they might be used by structural engineers. These methods include quasi-Newton, gradient, simulated annealing, Monte Carlo, genetic algorithms, particle swarms, neural networks, form-finding, and evolutionary topology optimisation.