ACD: Advanced Computational Design
Special Research Programme (SFB) funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
The main research question addressed by the SFB “Advanced Computational Design” is how to advance design tools and processes through multi- and interdisciplinary basic research in the areas of digital architecture, integrated building design, computer graphics and virtual reality, discrete and applied geometry, and computational mechanics.
Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) shapes our built environment, exerting substantial environmental, cultural and economic influence on society. However, it is among the least digitized industries, still caught in silo-thinking and sequential planning processes. The Information and Communication Technology field, on the other hand, is highly innovative, creating digital design tools that are well-founded in basic research, but often lack relevant domain knowledge, thus hardly meeting designers’ needs.
We will connect architecture, computer science, mathematics and engineering in order to develop advanced computational design tools able to combine implicit and explicit design knowledge. This unique combination of scientific disciplines and collaborative research with strong theoretical foundations aims to bring radical innovation in computational design by allowing immediate feedback already in early design phases and by expanding solution spaces by computing design variants that cannot be found by current methods. Our research is structured in three areas: Design Methodology (A1), Visual and Haptic Design Interaction (A2) and Form Finding (A3).
