How Autodesk Research Uses Project Refinery to Deliver Generative Design Workflows for AEC

Generative design is a framework for combining digital computation and human creativity to achieve results that would not otherwise be possible. It involves the integration of a rule-based geometric system, a series of measurable goals, and a system for automatically generating, evaluating, and evolving a very large number of design options. This approach offers many benefits for designing buildings and cities–including managing complexity, optimising for specific criteria, incorporating a large amount of input from past projects and current requests, navigating trade-offs based on real data, structuring discussion among stakeholders about design features and project objectives, offering transparency about project assumptions, and offering a “live model” for post-occupancy adaptation. The framework consists of 3 main components: 1) generate a wide design space of possible solutions through a bespoke geometry system; 2) evaluate each solution through measurable goals; 3) evolve generations of designs through evolutionary computation. Generative design is a flexible and scalable framework. It can be applied to a wide range of design problems and scales: from industrial components all the way to buildings and cities. In this session, we'll explore how generative design is being applied by Autodesk Research's The Living at a variety of scales, and how the Autodesk tools used by The Living (Dynamo and Refinery) can be used by customers to implement their own generative design workflows.