Generative Design of Mega-Structures: A structural Grammar Approach

The sustainability and efficiency in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry have received increasing concern in the past few decades. Further, with the advent and development of computational tools, structural optimization approaches combined with genera-tive design have become important tools in the design process and one of the most commonly used methods for the sustainable and efficient design. Among various generative methods, a con-siderable approach is related to the shape grammar, which is defined by such parameters and intertwined rules with which the algorithm generates a great number of geometric solutions, po-tentially unexpected in the phase of algorithm writing. By combining shape grammar with struc-tural optimization approaches, it is possible to obtain a structural grammar, which merges the geometrical/architectural aspects with structural/constructive ones. These approaches assume im-portance above all in structures in which the structural elements are exposed, and therefore the architectural aspects converge in the structural ones, as in the case of diagrid tall buildings or grid shell canopies. In this context, structural grammars for the generation of the optimized pattern in terms of structural weight are proposed for the aforementioned structures.