armando trento - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by armando trento
Reconsidering digital architectural design approaches involves an accurate observation of the rel... more Reconsidering digital architectural design approaches involves an accurate observation of the relation between human behaviours and spaces. Exploring the reciprocal relationships between people and context, helps better understanding societies' needs and "genius loci" specific identity factors; in other words, the bases of good design. Inclusion of users' behaviours in the design-apart from traditional questionnaires of participatory design-has been enhanced in the last years by the development of behaviour acquisition strategies, influenced by the evolution of sophisticated tools: the last can easily collect/use a considerable amount of data, tracking the actors' use process in different spatial contexts (regional, urban, architectural, interior scale). The present paper, based on our previous research, wants to contribute in sketching a theoretical framework within which it is possible to address a more smart and effective computation of the interaction between users and spaces, and vice versa. The quest is to reflect on a strategy to formalise explicit design knowledge by engineering the required semantic information on top of available simulation systems. An analysis of computable architectural design process implies the investigation of project models anatomy along the CAAD history. By discussing the evolution of those models, knowledge structures and their "design entity" formal representations, this work aims at providing an 'Ariadne's thread' for designers, software developers and academicians in order to enhance consciousness about limits and potentials of the tools they are familiar with.
Digital models in this field are evolving from an aesthetic simulation of reality, or, rather, a ... more Digital models in this field are evolving from an aesthetic simulation of reality, or, rather, a representation of the visual perception, to a more complex model: an information aggregation core. The investigation presents a research panel oriented to enhance the digital survey products-point clouds, meshes, 3D models-to be used as an intelligent visual archive assigning structured knowledge contents to artefacts' geometry. The implemented case regards the Temple of Venus and Rome. Research, in progress, has been developed by the following steps: 1) Subdividing the artefact geometry into subregions; 2) Developing the consolidation ontology for a few restoration classes; 3) Assigning (manually) to each artefact subcomponent, namely a mesh sub-region, a "smart label" including a link to its consolidation ontology instance. The aim is to combine the potential of VR visualization with ontology reasoning systems.
Blucher Design Proceedings, Dec 1, 2019
The present paper is focused on exploring a new paradigm in architectural design process that sho... more The present paper is focused on exploring a new paradigm in architectural design process that should raise the bar for a mutual collaboration between humans and digital assistants, able to face challenging problems of XXI century. Such a collaboration will aid design process freeing designer from middle level reasoning tasks, so they could focus on exploring-on the fly-design alternatives at a higher abstraction layer of knowledge. Such an assistant should explore and instantiate as much as possible knowledge structures and their inferences thanks to an extensive use of defaults, demons and agents, combined with its power and ubiquity so that they will be able to mimic behaviour of architectural design human experts. It aims other than to deal with data (1st layer) and simple reasoning tools (2nd layer) to automate design exploring consequences and side effects of design decisions and comparing goals (3rd layer). This assistant will speed up the evaluation of fresh design solutions, will suggest solutions by means of generative systems and will be able of a digital creativity.
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2]
eCAADe proceedings
The building industry is a field even more complex, characterized by different risks which can de... more The building industry is a field even more complex, characterized by different risks which can deeply influence the success of a building construction process. Aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the risk, declined in the main aspects that affects the construction industry, can be properly modelled and reduced thanks to the innovation of existing design methods and tools.The goal is to enhance the BIM models with AR (augmented reality), in order to intervene in the risk management process, increasing the level of knowledge exchanged between actors and, consequently, reduce defects related to misunderstandings. This can be possible using AR visualizations on site and/or Virtual Reality (VR) simulations, oriented to inform via the easier perceptive channel-the sightactors involved in the process
Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2]
Three-quarters of the production value are generated during activities that involve thinking, con... more Three-quarters of the production value are generated during activities that involve thinking, conducting relational and brainstorming activities. Most of the European office buildings today have been designed on more than fifty year old architectural and psychosocial concepts. To improve wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-process, evolving individual workspace to flexible and specialized ones, according to the users tasks-activity-based. BIM supports sophisticated behaviors simulation such as energy, acoustics, although the state of the art, this paradigm is not able to manage space use-processes. Compared to current research on simulation systems, the proposed method links spaces to user's Behavioral Knowledge including formalization of Personality Typologies and profiled behavioral patterns. A hybrid approach for computational technique has been identified, combining (big) data-driven algorithm with ontology-based context reasoning, in order to achieve both, the best performance from intensive data-driven methods, and the finest adaptation for ontological context awareness (including unexplored context capabilities and objects adaptations).
eCAADe proceedings
To improve environmental wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-pro... more To improve environmental wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-process, evolving individual space to flexible and specialized ones, according to the users`tasks-activity-based. BIM models supports sophisticated behaviours' simulation such as energy, acoustics, although it is not able to manage space use-processes. The present paper rather than a report of a case study or the presentation of a new methodology wants to contribute, together with previous works, in sketching a theroretical framework within which it is possible to compute the interaction between users and spaces (and vice versa). The quest is to reflect on possible paths for engineering knowledge and understanding, providing a BIM system the semantic information required to operate adaptively and achieve robust and innovative goal-directed behavior. Compared to current research on simulation systems, this research approach links Context, intended as spaces capabilities to Actor's Behavioural Knowledge including formalization of personality typologies and profiled behavioural patterns. By means of a classical problem solving metaphor, the``squared peg in a round hole'' one, multiple categories for goal achievement are sketched, based on reciprocal Actors and Context behaviour adaptation.
eCAADe proceedings
The finding of a functional program for any kind of building involves a great amount of knowledge... more The finding of a functional program for any kind of building involves a great amount of knowledge about the behavior of future building users. This knowledge can be gathered by looking at relevant building literature (Adler, 1999; Neufert and Neufert, 2000) or by investigating the actual processes taking place in similar environments, the latter being demonstrated e.g. by (Schütte-Lihotzky, 2004) or new functionalist approaches of the MVRDV group (Costanzo, 2006)). Both techniques have the disadvantage that the architect might assume a behavior which is seldom experienced in real life (either through lack of information or by failing to meet the building user's expectations). What is needed is a verification step in which the design is tested on real users. We have devised a game-like environment (Figure 1a) in which it is possible to capture the behavior of future building users in order to verify the relevance of the design even at a very early stage. As result of applying our approach, we can find previously overlooked usage situations, which may be used to further adapt the design to the user's needs.
Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
The purpose of collaboration is to integrate the separate knowledge possessed by the participants... more The purpose of collaboration is to integrate the separate knowledge possessed by the participants in the design process into one meaningful whole. Centralized data structures, showed that the AEC industry is so fragmented that the data-centric approach is not feasible, for technical and procedural reasons. The shared database, minimizing the complexity of translating different form of representation, quickly becomes too large and unwieldy to support the dynamic process of multidisciplinary collaborative design. In this paper, we propose a distributed model that includes a mechanism to facilitate the participants' intentions more effectively by incorporating semantics into their representations. We also present how the semantics would be authored and published through the mechanism so that a higher level of shared understanding among the participants would be achieved.
eCAADe proceedings
In our times, in a complex and universal village where problems are intertwined and pervasive bey... more In our times, in a complex and universal village where problems are intertwined and pervasive beyond our imagination, we need new approaches to deal with them-appropriately. In a previous work we highlighted the importance to reason ontologies: a 'world' f.i. a building-as a mental image-is not a Linnaeus's classification (structured set of entities) but a system (goals oriented set of classes) able to reasoning upon selectively chosen entities belonging to different Realms (ontology universes) (Fioravanti et al., 2011a). The general aim of our research-to be an effective aid to design-is to simulate wo/man as designer and user of designed spaces, hence how mental skill can be computably included in new tools able to tackle these problems. This paper is focused on the first role: how actor-designers approach design problems and how the inference mechanism can help them and affect the design process. A 'Building Object'-the dual system of Spaces and Technology elements-is inferred in several ways according to different goals and the inference mechanism can, simulating human mental shortcuts, optimize thinking.
eCAADe proceedings
Process/product complexity is at present an unavoidable component of present building design appr... more Process/product complexity is at present an unavoidable component of present building design approach that affects building product's quality. To overcome this problem, effective collaboration is required among all the actors involved in the design process. Data and information exchange is not sufficient to guarantee mutual understanding; to support effective collaboration among actors; it is required a proper knowledge formalization and management. This paper reports on an innovative structure for knowledge modeling in crossdisciplinary building design, that has been formalized in a general template. The proposed Knowledge Model has been, at present, implemented by means of available ontology editors and is going to be used into teaching courses to check its efficiency in collaborative building design classes.
eCAADe proceedings
Reshaping artificially the Earth on human needs" implies a very complex industrial system that is... more Reshaping artificially the Earth on human needs" implies a very complex industrial system that is performed through a very complex process. It consists of a collective, finalized and plural-constrained process, scheduled by phases, made up by several actors, characterized by the co-presence of numerous and very different (non-) specialist skills. In this paper we define the enhancement path of a web-based collaborative environment-discussed in a previous work-laying upon actual design entities representation an innovative logical level for knowledge formalization. It is presented an example of end-users requirement formalization, aimed at supporting the designers in the process by means of rule-based project suggestions.
Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 1]
This paper reports on a research project oriented to support the communication for, and realizati... more This paper reports on a research project oriented to support the communication for, and realization of a sculptural masterpiece within an urban context in the historic centre of Rome. The sculpture has been installed just a few months before the 2017 eCAADe, thus enabling conference participants to explore the final output in situ. While the whole process of creation of the art piece is outlined, our focus is on the description of implementing various technologies like laser scanning, Virtual Reality (VR) and Numerical Simulations that have been used to accomplish the relevant tasks. The general field of investigation is how digital tools and a VR approach to modelling, simulating and developing sculptural components of an artwork could facilitate the workflow between artist, client, designers, engineers, urbanists, archaeologists, art foundry fabricators and public authorities. Methodologically, an action research approach was adopted for this project, primarily for its ability to link between research and practice in order to solve a realistic multidisciplinary problem in its actual setting.
eCAADe proceedings
Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe faces many urgent tasks. ... more Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe faces many urgent tasks. Among the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) international scientific societies, only few researches systematically investigate on how to integrate the design solutions with Health and Safety (HS) planning measures, enhancing a collaborative "fusion" of all involved actors in Design and Construction decision making. Process automation cannot be enhanced until design/management tools, such as Building Information Models, can rely only on entities formalised "per se", geometrical items fulfilled by isolated-object specific information. To face complex problems, BIM models should be able to implement and manipulate multiple sets of entities, qualified by clearly established relationships, belonging to organically structured and oriented (sub-) systems. This paper reports on an early stage research project, focused on the identification of operative rules for Health and Safety design. Implementation on the unique case study of Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana functional refurbishment faces two main objectives: one, more pragmatic, is concerned with boosting workers education about non-standard operative tasks, by means of accurate ad-hoc construction narrative visualisation; another one, more challenging and theoretically complex, consists in modelling "judgment-based" rules, aimed at supporting automated reasoning in Safety Design.
The purpose of this book is to illustrate the result of a many-year-long research effort. We have... more The purpose of this book is to illustrate the result of a many-year-long research effort. We have sought to separate the description of the theoretical part from that of its application. The result is a work organized in five parts, corresponding to the content we indicated above: the first part deals with the design collaboration, its characteristics, and the relationship with the design’s quality; the second part examines the characteristics of design knowledge, the principal domains in which it is expressed, and its properties; the third part looks into the theoretical and implementative characteristics of the BKM model; the fourth part defines the characteristics of the ABCD platform and its modes of implementation; the fifth part illustrates the function of a reduced-scale prototype of the ABCD platform and its application to a case study; lastly, the conclusions discuss the future developments of the research’s outcome
Reconsidering digital architectural design approaches involves an accurate observation of the rel... more Reconsidering digital architectural design approaches involves an accurate observation of the relation between human behaviours and spaces. Exploring the reciprocal relationships between people and context, helps better understanding societies' needs and "genius loci" specific identity factors; in other words, the bases of good design. Inclusion of users' behaviours in the design-apart from traditional questionnaires of participatory design-has been enhanced in the last years by the development of behaviour acquisition strategies, influenced by the evolution of sophisticated tools: the last can easily collect/use a considerable amount of data, tracking the actors' use process in different spatial contexts (regional, urban, architectural, interior scale). The present paper, based on our previous research, wants to contribute in sketching a theoretical framework within which it is possible to address a more smart and effective computation of the interaction between users and spaces, and vice versa. The quest is to reflect on a strategy to formalise explicit design knowledge by engineering the required semantic information on top of available simulation systems. An analysis of computable architectural design process implies the investigation of project models anatomy along the CAAD history. By discussing the evolution of those models, knowledge structures and their "design entity" formal representations, this work aims at providing an 'Ariadne's thread' for designers, software developers and academicians in order to enhance consciousness about limits and potentials of the tools they are familiar with.
Digital models in this field are evolving from an aesthetic simulation of reality, or, rather, a ... more Digital models in this field are evolving from an aesthetic simulation of reality, or, rather, a representation of the visual perception, to a more complex model: an information aggregation core. The investigation presents a research panel oriented to enhance the digital survey products-point clouds, meshes, 3D models-to be used as an intelligent visual archive assigning structured knowledge contents to artefacts' geometry. The implemented case regards the Temple of Venus and Rome. Research, in progress, has been developed by the following steps: 1) Subdividing the artefact geometry into subregions; 2) Developing the consolidation ontology for a few restoration classes; 3) Assigning (manually) to each artefact subcomponent, namely a mesh sub-region, a "smart label" including a link to its consolidation ontology instance. The aim is to combine the potential of VR visualization with ontology reasoning systems.
Blucher Design Proceedings, Dec 1, 2019
The present paper is focused on exploring a new paradigm in architectural design process that sho... more The present paper is focused on exploring a new paradigm in architectural design process that should raise the bar for a mutual collaboration between humans and digital assistants, able to face challenging problems of XXI century. Such a collaboration will aid design process freeing designer from middle level reasoning tasks, so they could focus on exploring-on the fly-design alternatives at a higher abstraction layer of knowledge. Such an assistant should explore and instantiate as much as possible knowledge structures and their inferences thanks to an extensive use of defaults, demons and agents, combined with its power and ubiquity so that they will be able to mimic behaviour of architectural design human experts. It aims other than to deal with data (1st layer) and simple reasoning tools (2nd layer) to automate design exploring consequences and side effects of design decisions and comparing goals (3rd layer). This assistant will speed up the evaluation of fresh design solutions, will suggest solutions by means of generative systems and will be able of a digital creativity.
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2]
eCAADe proceedings
The building industry is a field even more complex, characterized by different risks which can de... more The building industry is a field even more complex, characterized by different risks which can deeply influence the success of a building construction process. Aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the risk, declined in the main aspects that affects the construction industry, can be properly modelled and reduced thanks to the innovation of existing design methods and tools.The goal is to enhance the BIM models with AR (augmented reality), in order to intervene in the risk management process, increasing the level of knowledge exchanged between actors and, consequently, reduce defects related to misunderstandings. This can be possible using AR visualizations on site and/or Virtual Reality (VR) simulations, oriented to inform via the easier perceptive channel-the sightactors involved in the process
Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2]
Three-quarters of the production value are generated during activities that involve thinking, con... more Three-quarters of the production value are generated during activities that involve thinking, conducting relational and brainstorming activities. Most of the European office buildings today have been designed on more than fifty year old architectural and psychosocial concepts. To improve wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-process, evolving individual workspace to flexible and specialized ones, according to the users tasks-activity-based. BIM supports sophisticated behaviors simulation such as energy, acoustics, although the state of the art, this paradigm is not able to manage space use-processes. Compared to current research on simulation systems, the proposed method links spaces to user's Behavioral Knowledge including formalization of Personality Typologies and profiled behavioral patterns. A hybrid approach for computational technique has been identified, combining (big) data-driven algorithm with ontology-based context reasoning, in order to achieve both, the best performance from intensive data-driven methods, and the finest adaptation for ontological context awareness (including unexplored context capabilities and objects adaptations).
eCAADe proceedings
To improve environmental wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-pro... more To improve environmental wellbeing and productivity, design innovation focuses on human's use-process, evolving individual space to flexible and specialized ones, according to the users`tasks-activity-based. BIM models supports sophisticated behaviours' simulation such as energy, acoustics, although it is not able to manage space use-processes. The present paper rather than a report of a case study or the presentation of a new methodology wants to contribute, together with previous works, in sketching a theroretical framework within which it is possible to compute the interaction between users and spaces (and vice versa). The quest is to reflect on possible paths for engineering knowledge and understanding, providing a BIM system the semantic information required to operate adaptively and achieve robust and innovative goal-directed behavior. Compared to current research on simulation systems, this research approach links Context, intended as spaces capabilities to Actor's Behavioural Knowledge including formalization of personality typologies and profiled behavioural patterns. By means of a classical problem solving metaphor, the``squared peg in a round hole'' one, multiple categories for goal achievement are sketched, based on reciprocal Actors and Context behaviour adaptation.
eCAADe proceedings
The finding of a functional program for any kind of building involves a great amount of knowledge... more The finding of a functional program for any kind of building involves a great amount of knowledge about the behavior of future building users. This knowledge can be gathered by looking at relevant building literature (Adler, 1999; Neufert and Neufert, 2000) or by investigating the actual processes taking place in similar environments, the latter being demonstrated e.g. by (Schütte-Lihotzky, 2004) or new functionalist approaches of the MVRDV group (Costanzo, 2006)). Both techniques have the disadvantage that the architect might assume a behavior which is seldom experienced in real life (either through lack of information or by failing to meet the building user's expectations). What is needed is a verification step in which the design is tested on real users. We have devised a game-like environment (Figure 1a) in which it is possible to capture the behavior of future building users in order to verify the relevance of the design even at a very early stage. As result of applying our approach, we can find previously overlooked usage situations, which may be used to further adapt the design to the user's needs.
Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)
The purpose of collaboration is to integrate the separate knowledge possessed by the participants... more The purpose of collaboration is to integrate the separate knowledge possessed by the participants in the design process into one meaningful whole. Centralized data structures, showed that the AEC industry is so fragmented that the data-centric approach is not feasible, for technical and procedural reasons. The shared database, minimizing the complexity of translating different form of representation, quickly becomes too large and unwieldy to support the dynamic process of multidisciplinary collaborative design. In this paper, we propose a distributed model that includes a mechanism to facilitate the participants' intentions more effectively by incorporating semantics into their representations. We also present how the semantics would be authored and published through the mechanism so that a higher level of shared understanding among the participants would be achieved.
eCAADe proceedings
In our times, in a complex and universal village where problems are intertwined and pervasive bey... more In our times, in a complex and universal village where problems are intertwined and pervasive beyond our imagination, we need new approaches to deal with them-appropriately. In a previous work we highlighted the importance to reason ontologies: a 'world' f.i. a building-as a mental image-is not a Linnaeus's classification (structured set of entities) but a system (goals oriented set of classes) able to reasoning upon selectively chosen entities belonging to different Realms (ontology universes) (Fioravanti et al., 2011a). The general aim of our research-to be an effective aid to design-is to simulate wo/man as designer and user of designed spaces, hence how mental skill can be computably included in new tools able to tackle these problems. This paper is focused on the first role: how actor-designers approach design problems and how the inference mechanism can help them and affect the design process. A 'Building Object'-the dual system of Spaces and Technology elements-is inferred in several ways according to different goals and the inference mechanism can, simulating human mental shortcuts, optimize thinking.
eCAADe proceedings
Process/product complexity is at present an unavoidable component of present building design appr... more Process/product complexity is at present an unavoidable component of present building design approach that affects building product's quality. To overcome this problem, effective collaboration is required among all the actors involved in the design process. Data and information exchange is not sufficient to guarantee mutual understanding; to support effective collaboration among actors; it is required a proper knowledge formalization and management. This paper reports on an innovative structure for knowledge modeling in crossdisciplinary building design, that has been formalized in a general template. The proposed Knowledge Model has been, at present, implemented by means of available ontology editors and is going to be used into teaching courses to check its efficiency in collaborative building design classes.
eCAADe proceedings
Reshaping artificially the Earth on human needs" implies a very complex industrial system that is... more Reshaping artificially the Earth on human needs" implies a very complex industrial system that is performed through a very complex process. It consists of a collective, finalized and plural-constrained process, scheduled by phases, made up by several actors, characterized by the co-presence of numerous and very different (non-) specialist skills. In this paper we define the enhancement path of a web-based collaborative environment-discussed in a previous work-laying upon actual design entities representation an innovative logical level for knowledge formalization. It is presented an example of end-users requirement formalization, aimed at supporting the designers in the process by means of rule-based project suggestions.
Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 1]
This paper reports on a research project oriented to support the communication for, and realizati... more This paper reports on a research project oriented to support the communication for, and realization of a sculptural masterpiece within an urban context in the historic centre of Rome. The sculpture has been installed just a few months before the 2017 eCAADe, thus enabling conference participants to explore the final output in situ. While the whole process of creation of the art piece is outlined, our focus is on the description of implementing various technologies like laser scanning, Virtual Reality (VR) and Numerical Simulations that have been used to accomplish the relevant tasks. The general field of investigation is how digital tools and a VR approach to modelling, simulating and developing sculptural components of an artwork could facilitate the workflow between artist, client, designers, engineers, urbanists, archaeologists, art foundry fabricators and public authorities. Methodologically, an action research approach was adopted for this project, primarily for its ability to link between research and practice in order to solve a realistic multidisciplinary problem in its actual setting.
eCAADe proceedings
Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe faces many urgent tasks. ... more Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe faces many urgent tasks. Among the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) international scientific societies, only few researches systematically investigate on how to integrate the design solutions with Health and Safety (HS) planning measures, enhancing a collaborative "fusion" of all involved actors in Design and Construction decision making. Process automation cannot be enhanced until design/management tools, such as Building Information Models, can rely only on entities formalised "per se", geometrical items fulfilled by isolated-object specific information. To face complex problems, BIM models should be able to implement and manipulate multiple sets of entities, qualified by clearly established relationships, belonging to organically structured and oriented (sub-) systems. This paper reports on an early stage research project, focused on the identification of operative rules for Health and Safety design. Implementation on the unique case study of Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana functional refurbishment faces two main objectives: one, more pragmatic, is concerned with boosting workers education about non-standard operative tasks, by means of accurate ad-hoc construction narrative visualisation; another one, more challenging and theoretically complex, consists in modelling "judgment-based" rules, aimed at supporting automated reasoning in Safety Design.
The purpose of this book is to illustrate the result of a many-year-long research effort. We have... more The purpose of this book is to illustrate the result of a many-year-long research effort. We have sought to separate the description of the theoretical part from that of its application. The result is a work organized in five parts, corresponding to the content we indicated above: the first part deals with the design collaboration, its characteristics, and the relationship with the design’s quality; the second part examines the characteristics of design knowledge, the principal domains in which it is expressed, and its properties; the third part looks into the theoretical and implementative characteristics of the BKM model; the fourth part defines the characteristics of the ABCD platform and its modes of implementation; the fifth part illustrates the function of a reduced-scale prototype of the ABCD platform and its application to a case study; lastly, the conclusions discuss the future developments of the research’s outcome