ABSTRACT
Architectural design has witnessed profound changes within the last decades. New material technologies, novel computational tools, digital design techniques and the growing importance of sustainability have shifted the conception and production of architectural and urban space for present-day society, whose patterns of occupation and interaction have become increasingly interwoven. Contemporary building designs are therefore more and more evaluated according to their capacity to resolve the numerous design challenges that simultaneously arise from contradictory necessities and constraints.
As designers need to reconsider their position within this changing environment, this chapter introduces the theories behind current digital simulation strategies and – looking in more depth at the concepts of Tectonic Articulation, Space Syntax, Agent-Based Occupancy Simulations, Evolutionary Design Solving and Genetic Algorithms – it examines how multi-layered immersive building simulation processes yield complex results in previously unexplored solution spaces and how contemporary immersive building simulations increasingly shift their emphasis towards the societal aspects of the built environment and its related social performance.
