Publisher's Synopsis
Revision with unchanged content. This book explores design tools based on evolutionary computation (EC), oriented primarily toward conceptual design of architectural and civil en-ginee-ring structures. EC tools are well suited for exploration in a way which pro-motes creative design. The multiplicity of solutions generated by EC tech-niques is less likely to cause design fixation, and so promote a more thorough ex-plo-ration of possible solutions. The use of such tools also allows the de-si-g-ner greater latitude in exploring design criteria, such as aesthetics, by utilizing an interactive human-computer interface. This book begins with a survey of tech-niques that have been used in early phases of architectural design, and estab-lishes a set of successful attributes, which are then discussed in the con-text of EC techniques. Finally, a specific implementation developed by the au-thor is described. Several examples are given in the area of architectural en-gi-nee-ring, and comparisons are made with results obtained with more con-ven-tio-nal optimization tools. This book is especially useful for designers in-ter-es-ted in new methods for generating and exploring structural form, and is acces-sible to non-programmers in either field.
