Interactive Construction Digital Tools With Real Time Analysis

 The recent developments in computational design tools have evolved into a sometimes purely digital process which opens up for new perspectives and problems in the sketching process. One of the interesting possibilities lay within the hybrid practitioner- or architect-engineer approach, where an architect-engineer or hybrid practitioner works simultaneously with both aesthetic and technical design requirements. In this paper the problem of a vague or not existing link between digital design tools, used by architects and designers, and the analysis tools developed by and for engineers is considered. The aim of this research is to look into integrated digital design and analysis tools in order to find out if it is suited for use by architects and designers or only by specialists and technicians - and if not, then to look at what can be done to make them more available to architects and designers. An example of a prototype for a digital conceptual design tool with integrated real time structural analysis is presented and compared with a more common Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach. It is concluded that a digital conceptual design tool with embedded real time structural analysis could provide the possibility for the designer to work both with the aesthetics as well as the technical aspects of architectural design.