The development of new building system requires an adoption of strategy of implementation in the market. My project's industrial partner is Moelven Töreboda, a company producing glulam, that wants to introduce in the market an optional building system with large spans: Tra8 (unfortunately only in Swedish).

Therefore, the beam-and-post system (called in Swedish Trä8)is currently introduced as a limited product. It has an upper limitation of span length of 8 meters and it is assumed that the planar solution of the building should consist of the square modules. Usually, in individual building projects, the design stage is time consuming and therefore costly. Moelven's goal is to create a system that will be a ready (standardized) product, where the design stage will be reduced. This is the reason for the preliminary dimensional limitations for the system.

Vision

This system is planned to be applied for office and commercial buildings rather than for residential buildings.

In the future, the larger architectural flexibility of the system is required to face the competition on the market. This is where, in my opinion, the parametric design could be used to present the possibilites of the system and their presentation.

System in the present shape

The beam and post system is based on the square modules, which maximal dimension is decided by producer as 8 m. Since glulam is an effective and competitive material for longer spans, so for the sake of this project the minimal length can be assumed as 4,5 m. The main components of the system are: beams, posts and prefabricated stabilizing walls. Even though the main dimension of the module might change, which influences mostly the length of the beams, all the dimensions of cross-sections remain the same (despite being overdimensioned in some cases).

The bracing walls exist in the system in two configurations called for 'T' and 'X' (see left figure) and their existence and location depends on the horizontal geometry, which, for instance, can be as visible on the middle figure.

The example of locations of columns (posts) and T-walls is visible on the figure to the right, for the very simple geometry of the house that is built of 3×2 modules.

The overall aim of the course is to learn basics of Unified Modeling Language (UML) and about the parametric design approach. The perfect scenario would be to find applications of these tools in own research projects.

Since at the present shape the beam-and-post system for timber houses proposed by Moelven Töreboda is based on square even modules, the tools learned in the course can be used to support the development of the system.

Within the course I would like to analyze the system itself and the potential of development of the system. As a presenting toll of result I would like to use UML diagrams. I believe that the parametric approach could be very useful support in creating for instance program or application in chosen software to produce output beginning from the presentation of the product to the customer (including price and visual presentation) and ending on the material required for production. Such an application would be a great tool for creating the flexible building system.

The schematic representation of the desired performance of the application could look as follows:

The additional benefit of such an application would be the output of approximate assembly time and 3D models for structural analysis, if such would be necessary.

Limitations of the project

This project is a test of using parametric design as a support in creating a building system in order to decrease/eliminate the long design stage for individual projects. Within the project the analysis (with help of UML diagrams) will be performed to enable creating the application for system presentation.

The test of creating a simplified application will be performed. In the application the geometrical planar shape of the building should be an input and the application would generate the drawing of the B&P-system solution with drawings and lists of materials, and price.

To test the proposed application, software Matlab will be used.

The beam-and-post system has a base of few basic structural components, which are:

Module

Within projects “taking part” in this course a module is defined in different ways, so for the sake of clarity, the illustration of “my” module is presented below:

The placing of posts and stabilizing elements is dependent on the geometry of the building and is performed firstly. The length of the beams connecting them is resulting from the localization of the vertical elements.

To build models that can be helpful in realization of this project I decided to use class diagrams and additionally action diagrams.

System diagram

The system diagram shows the conceptual approach of the system from the course's perspective, which make visible which parts of the system are relevant for the project (all the lighter blue) and which are not relevant neither for the project (roof, connectors and anchorages, floor cassettes) nor for Moelven (walls, meaning: they will not be part of the product that Moelven will deliver).

Input-related diagram

This diagram shows an example of the definition of geometry that I tried to implement in Matlab to test the idea. I decided to base the definition of the geometry on the manual definition of nodes which will represent the building plan. The definition of nodes with help of parameters 'a','b','c' and 'd' (explained in section My way to understanding, solutions) will allow for their “identification” in the program and inserting of the suitable vertical element in the considered node, which will determine the remaining elements of the systems.

Output-related diagram

In a standardized system, where the calculations are made for a certain ranges of spans, the proposed application could completely substitute the design stage.

“What is a good model?

A model is good when it is possible to communicate it, when it fits its purpose, and when we have captured essentials.” (Eriksson and Penker, 1998)

Answer to the question if my models are good I remain for readers of this site….

The implementation of the idea with help of Matlab was not successful. The following attempts of defining the geometry of the building were closer to an actual programming code and the final attempt of defining geometry with help of coordinates and configurations of nodes only appeared to not be successful either. Since the application should be useful for any geometry, the software chosen should be more graphics-friendly, e.g. in Matlab a visual representation of the stabilizing element requires definition of the coordinates and rotation of such element is not possible.

The work with implementing the application though made me realize that the input diagram is strictly related to the chosen software, e.g. presented above “Input-related diagram” presents the last idea that was attempted to implement in Matlab.

Another conclusion is unfortunately that the system is in the too early stage of development so such broad thinking of flexibility of the system could be possible or implemented. At present, the more basic structural problems are being solved to enable successful erecting of buildings in beam-and-post system at all. However, the process of thinking of the practical implementing of the idea in form of simplified Matlab application gave the profit of discovering some smaller, but important imperfections in the system's structure, like the lack of dimensional consequence or practical solution of connecting stabilizing elements into configurations 'T' and 'X'. I also realized that parametrization is a great tool or “way of thinking”, but not always useful. In a system like beam-and-post, which is supposed to be a standardized and optimized product, the approach of parametrization seems very suitable to use.

I think that this course gave me the very basic knowledge about the UML and about huge possibilities that this tool offers, and I hope that in the future work I will have more possibilities to use it. I wish though I took my chance to test more types of UML diagrams in my project.

I wish also I gave myself more time to consider other possibilities of using parametric design and UML that would be more useful in my research project. The first idea seemed though very interesting and attractive to analyze and solve.

Sources helping in understanding UML.

Alhir, S. S. (1998). UML in a nutshell. O'Reilly&Associates, Inc. , Sebastopol.

Eriksson, H.-E. and Penker, M. (1998). UML Toolkit. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Fowler, M. and Scott, K. (1999). UML distilled. A brief guide to the standard object modelling language. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.