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Evolving Floorplans

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Re: Evolving Floorplans

#91

Post by jmilloy »

dizzydot wrote: post #83
jmilloy wrote: post #2

These kinds of tools are mostly about the input constraints, heuristics, and weights. I'd love to see more about this with more practical constraints (rectilinear rooms and hallways, minimum area for cafetaria/gym, etc) and additional heuristics, such as window area in classrooms, number of hallways/intersections for ease-of-navigation, and building costs beyond just material use.

This is essentially what the author said in the summary.

Yep. Credit to the author. The page has been updated today since I wrote that comment.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#92

Post by jmilloy »

zellyn wrote: post #82
jmilloy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit to the author -- I think the optimized-for-windows results have been added since this was posted here.

I posted my comment after reading the article, which included optimized-for-windows results. Of course, others may have had it sitting around in a browser tab for a while…

Yep. Unfortunately some folks are getting downvoted for reasonable criticisms that make no sense now that the post has been updated.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#93

Post by elihu »

hammock wrote: post #55

These types of exercises are useful not to find their solutions, but to reveal the shortcomings of the model used to create them - and our thus our own mental models! Building design is older than humankind, and there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are. But those reasons aren't always clear. Essentially modern floor plan design is the output of a black-box machine (human) learning algor…

> The flawed output here, and the comments, help us point out what some of the missing variables are: egress, airflow, construction cost, etc.

...or maybe illustrate that some of the existing external constraints are stifling architecture as a useful art form?

Modern structures have to be fully designed before they are built, whereas most traditional structures were designed and built at the same time, and the design could evolve as needed to fit the environment. Now, we do everything with straight lines because it's easier to make plans and estimate materials and communicate with builders and file for permits and verify code compliance and so on, but you can do much more interesting and complicated designs if you don't have to communicate the design with a human at every step.

I think sometime in the not-too-distant future we'll have practical machines that can construct buildings designed by software to conform to the features and limitations of the building site and the desires of the future owners. If there's no need to communicate the design to a human other than "does this rendering look good?" then we don't need right angles everywhere just to make life easy for the draftsmen and carpenters.

This seems kind of related to something Christopher Alexander said about twenty years ago (which was linked from HN recently [1]), that current design and construction methods and business models have basically made good architecture well-nigh impossible to achieve on a wide scale. I don't know what he would think of using his architectural pattern language as a set of algorithm heuristics, but it's one possible way forward.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17480178

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#94

Post by davidivadavid »

yoz-y wrote: post #8

I've been in a few apartments that had novelty floor plans without right angles. All of them were terrible. Granted I have not been in one owned by somebody rich or skilled enough to only have custom made furniture.

An interesting example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsgjhecHus

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#95

Post by davidivadavid »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #70
pavel_lishin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, zero: https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-r... But your point is well taken; there's no particularly great reason to, unless your school is so big and your administration is so goofy that kids are constantly running late. That constraint would be better suited to applying these algorithms to offices, hospitals, military bases, prisons, and maybe shopping malls.

The high school I went to (Alvin H.S. in Alvin, TX) was laid out terribly. It was almost 70 acres, and there were dozens of buildings with classes in them. We were given 7 minutes between classes, and my freshman year I had to cross the campus multiple times per day (more than 2000 feet each way). That meant pretty much running. On days when it was raining, and you couldn't cut through the grass, or if you were handi…

Guess your H.S. optimized for student fitness?

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#96

Post by QML »

eadmund wrote: post #48

The author describes the results as 'irrational,' but I'd hardly agree with the negative connotation of that word: I think that the generated floorplans look lovely , and I wish that I'd gone to school somewhere like that. Far from irrational, I think it's quite rational to try to design buildings to be pleasant to live in, not just easy to draw with a straightedge. Also, the generated rooms look much like the sort o…

I will have to disagree with the author’s characterization of these floor plans as irrational.

As pointed out by commentator from the r/ML subreddit, the plans resemble biological arteries — which intuitively make sense given that the objective was to minimize distance to nearest fire exit. The analog is that arteries try to maximize surface area to volume ratio to ensure blood flood.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#97

Post by QML »

hammock wrote: post #55

These types of exercises are useful not to find their solutions, but to reveal the shortcomings of the model used to create them - and our thus our own mental models! Building design is older than humankind, and there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are. But those reasons aren't always clear. Essentially modern floor plan design is the output of a black-box machine (human) learning algor…

I disagree: the issue isn’t with the expressivity of the model, but with the objective problem and constraints set by the author. You can quickly adjust the algorithm to product floor plans resembling modern buildings by penalizing construction materials.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#98

Post by vanderZwan »

hammock wrote: post #55

These types of exercises are useful not to find their solutions, but to reveal the shortcomings of the model used to create them - and our thus our own mental models! Building design is older than humankind, and there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are. But those reasons aren't always clear. Essentially modern floor plan design is the output of a black-box machine (human) learning algor…

> there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are.

Eh, not quite: all of these "reasons" are adaptations to a specific condition. Many of which only exist since recently (for example, reinforced concrete enforces certain adaptations).

Evolution is not working towards one static best solution. It is always a process of adaptation of an existing solution to the current context.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#99

Post by hammock »

vanderZwan wrote: post #98
hammock wrote: post #55

These types of exercises are useful not to find their solutions, but to reveal the shortcomings of the model used to create them - and our thus our own mental models! Building design is older than humankind, and there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are. But those reasons aren't always clear. Essentially modern floor plan design is the output of a black-box machine (human) learning algor…

> there's tens of millenia worth of reasons why they are the way they are. Eh, not quite: all of these "reasons" are adaptations to a specific condition. Many of which only exist since recently (for example, reinforced concrete enforces certain adaptations). Evolution is not working towards one static best solution. It is always a process of adaptation of an existing solution to the current context.

I don't disagree. However no one civilization would have been able to invent, for example, a skyscraper of reinforced concrete, in a vacuum, without everything that came before that.

Re: Evolving Floorplans

#100

Post by dang »

johnalamos wrote: post #63

Why is this stupid shit not in 3d ?

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments and ignoring our request to stop.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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