Design to fabrication integration and material craftsmanship: A performance driven stone architecture design system based on material, structural and fabrication constraints and criteria

This paper presents a computational design methodology through describing of a case study on stone building system. In addition to establishing a performance driven form-finding methodology, the objective is to redefine local craftsmanship methods as industrial fabrication techniques in order to introduce the constructability of the design solutions as one of the main performance criteria. Therefore, the focus of the methodology is to facilitate architectural design processes through developing of customized computational design tools and workflows for data integration and concurrent performance evaluation. The research starts with the hypothesis that the technological advancements in digital design and fabrication can lead to re-exploration and improvement of traditional building techniques with local materials. The paper explains different stages of the methodology and the way the chained design to fabrication processes would lead to constructible, structurally possible and optimal design solutions of small scale and simple symmetric design solutions to complex topologies at the scale of larger complex buildings.