Metaheuristics for a tectonic development of hospital design footprints

The present paper presents a model for footprint generation of hospital design based on functionalities. The model takes point of departure in layout generation for hospitals by use of a metaheuristic approach. The hospital functionalities with respective constraints lead a decomposition of the hospital for layout and footprint configuration. By decomposing the hospital into geometric units of individual given sizes, given functionalities, and requirements units for conceptual design are defined. The geometric units form the conceptual design of a hospital and the baseline for the structural design and the building envelope. By generating conceptual design from functionalities described as correlations and requirements a basis for tectonic design is created, where a functional integrated solution for architectural form and structural design arises of functional requirements as corresponding arrangements of all parts.

The main contribution of the present study is an investigation of soft computing for tectonic design with focus on footprint based on functionalities for design generation of architectural form and structural design. The approach is meeting design requirements meanwhile the design quality in terms of design preferences is maximized, in the conceptual design configuration.