Engineering & Computational Design
We create sophisticated algorithms to automate workflows withing the AEC industry. We help companies (project owners and project managers) to enhance their productivity and efficiency thanks to a wide range of computational services.
Are you a designer looking for support in designing your configurable products? Find out how our expertise in parametric modelling can help you develop 3D configurators.
Our Area of Expertise
Datamorphoz offers its computational design services to a wide range of sectors, from real estate to product design.
Real Estate
Supporting land acquisition & optimizing site planning scenarios
- Automating feasibility studies
- Assessing the potential of a property based on an architectural concept
In two key steps:
- Formalising design rules, urban constraints, and programmatic, economic, and architectural objectives
- Generating numerous site planning scenarios & optimisation: Evaluating and extracting useful data for decision-making
Creating added value:
- Combining quality and quantity
- Enhancing your assets by improving user comfort
Environmental Engineering
Enhancing passive strategies through a multi-objective approach
- In the early stages, the integration of environmental objectives with programmatic and architectural objectives helps to guide formal and pre-dimensional choices (layout, size, detailing of the building envelope, etc.).
- During development phases, this approach saves time by eliminating the need for architects and design offices to go back and forth, and improve the overall performance of the project.
- In certification phases, it enables us to meet stringent and sometimes contradictory requirements by finding compromises through multi-criteria optimization (BREEAM, LEED, HQE, etc.).
Architecture & Urban Planning
Design and decision support through algorithmic processes
- Integrating programmatic, architectural, and environmental objectives into the design process, followed by multi-criteria optimisation
Solving complex geometries problems
Modeling bio-inspired geometries
Procedural design & modular architecture:
- Generating architectural and urban shapes via behavioral rules applied to replicable systems.
Design
Designing configurable products
Automate and streamline manufacturing
- Complex, organic geometries & bio-inspired modeling processes
“Computational Design is not a tool, but a process built on algorithms that automate, optimise, and rationalise geometries or generate multiple design options.”
Ilona PINTO DE ARAUJO
Founder, Datamorphoz
Our Computational Design expertise in your field
Whatever your core business, integrating algorithmic processes into your projects offers numerous benefits
Time-savings
Time is saved on two levels: by automating certain often repetitive and mundane design process steps, and by optimising projects in the early stages, significantly reducing the back-and-forth between designers and engineering firms..
Costs reduction
Reducing costs means both shortening development times and mitigating risk: knowing site planning scenarios and their associated indicators early in the project ensures accurate programmatic and financial estimates.
Improving performance
Energy, environmental and programme objectives are integrated with design rules to produce optimised parametric 3D models. By working through a large number of iterations, we obtain a range of scenarios that meet constraints, certification targets and architectural concepts.
Limiting environmental impact
A sustainable project starts with morphological considerations, long before material selection and energy systems. We help you design efficient and virtuous projects by developing passive strategies that put the user, their comfort and energy consumption at the centre of the design.
Our Expertise
From product design to urban planning, discover our expertise in environmental engineering and computational design.
Parametric modelling & Automation
There are many reasons to work with parametric 3D models: saving time, quickly testing numerous versions, anticipating possible changes in the model, automating actions on a large number of objects, etc.
For example, parametric modelling makes it possible to automate the generation of manufacturing files for CNC machines by converting the components of a 3D model into CAD files or G-code (CNC milling, 3D printing, laser cutting, etc.).
Whatever your needs, we can model your projects using Rhinoceros 3D + Grasshopper.
- From objects to buildings, entrust us with the modelling of your project.
Procedural design
Procedural design processes are based on algorithms that automatically apply behavioural rules to 2D or 3D objects and let them evolve through successive iterations.
This approach offers many advantages, such as obtaining optimised models while avoiding the complexity of multi-criteria optimisation computations.
Often used to generate complex and organic shapes, it mimics growth processes observed in living organisms, such as L-systems, fractals, reaction-diffusion systems and cellular automata.
Applied to architecture or urban planning, these methods quickly generate 3D models of buildings or interior layouts based on a set of rules, such as adjacency rules.
Generative design & Multi-criteria optimisation
Based on parametric models, generative design processes enable the rapid generation of a large number of design scenarios. These scenarios can be optimised based on input data, constraints and objectives using algorithms that iteratively and intelligently link model evaluation results (output data) with variable parameters (input data). Each iteration builds on the previous one to evolve.
This approach is a valuable asset in project design, allowing both significant time savings and increased performance.
Automated feasibility studies
Based on a set of specifications that define the main architectural choices and the constraints related to the urban planning regulations, we can generate a large number of simplified scenarios that meet the predefined objectives, explore possible solutions and compare them (building density, cost, number of parking spaces, etc.).
In real estate development, these methods make it possible to quickly assess the potential of a site in relation to a replicable concept. In architectural design, they help to automate the early stages of the design process by facilitating strategic decision making.
Urban morphogenesis and building envelope optimisation
At block or neighbourhood level, generative algorithms can be used to generate optimised morphological scenarios based on a range of architectural, energy, environmental and user comfort constraints and objectives.
We design custom algorithms adapted to your project, whether you need to find optimal scenarios on the basis of a sketch, respecting the proposed form and layout, or, on the contrary, on the basis of a formal strategy or a less framed architectural concept.
The design methods are very similar, whether we’re working on building templates on a plot of land, or on the details of the envelope (shape, bay, double skin, shading device, etc.).
Customisable products & 3D configurators
Customisation within everyone’s reach, thanks to parametric models? It’s possible!
From the design of your unique piece to the creation of a 3D configurator for your customisable product, we’ll work with you to meet your specific needs.
Sun Exposure & Solar access
Sunlight is a real economic lever. Using solar data at every stage of the design process and at every scale helps to minimise the energy consumption of buildings, while providing valuable comfort for users.
Combined with other criteria, we use them as early as the preliminary phases to model optimal templates for a given context, during the design phases to make strategic choices about the geometry of the envelope, or in more advanced phases to validate requirements according to standards (HQE, BREEAM, LEED etc.)..
Daylight & Visual comfort
Daylight is often relegated to second place when compared to energy requirements. However, the correct use of natural light not only helps to minimise the environmental impact of buildings, but also provides essential comfort for occupants.
Various indicators allow us to qualify lighting environments, such as Daylight Factor or Daylight Autonomy, often used in the design of school, office or residential buildings, but also to optimise spaces with strict specifications, such as gymnasiums hosting competitions, through glare or homogeneity simulations.
Daylighting is often studied in the context of protection against summer overheating. As these objectives are a priori contradictory, the use of multi-criteria optimisation algorithms allows us to find effective trade-offs.
Views & Visibility
Through the analysis of views and visibility, we are able to quantify criteria that are a priori subjective. The proper use of views in a project has both an environmental impact – study of the Sky View Factor and its link with heat islands, or the Green View Index – and a social impact – in relation to public, physical and mental health, or safety..
Application Examples
Integrating visual objectives into design algorithms allows for:
- Maximising views from residential buildings towards green spaces or notable landmarks such as rivers or historical monuments, by adjusting building placement, morphology, and window openings
- Conversely, minimising views towards less desirable areas, such as road infrastructure.
Visibility studies in relation to user pathways allow for:
- Optimising urban planning: determining the best location for retail spaces or advertising, enhancing public safety by reducing bottlenecks, etc.
- Supporting architectural design: improving visibility and interior layout to ensure comfort and security, such as quantifying visibility from supervisors’ offices onto a schoolyard or from hospital reception areas toward patient rooms.
3D Configurator for e-commerce websites
Do you design and manufacture items and want to go beyond simple configuration through option selection?
We can help you create parametric 3D models and integrate a 3D configurator into your e-commerce site without the complexity and cost of custom application development.
Computational Design Consulting
Do you have a specific need that requires our engineering expertise?
Feel free to contact us to see how we can assist you.
