Informed Data-Driven Computational Design
Rick Titulaer – ARUP
As a Computational Design Champion, Rick Titulaer helps to lead the adoption of computational design thinking and tools at Arup, a leading engineering firm offering design, project management, and consulting services across all aspects of the built environment.
Founded in 1946 by Sir Ove Nyquist Arup, the firm has grown to become one of the most prominent engineering consulting firms globally, with offices in over 30 countries and a staff of thousands of specialists across a wide range of disciplines.
Arup currently employs over 800 computational designers and has built a number of software tools to help facilitate the computational design process that is also shared with clients to help accelerate the adoption of tools that help to align to the principals of Total Architecture as discussed in Ove Arups ‘Key Speech’.
At the CDFAM Computational Design Symposium in Berlin, Rick will be discussing the software tools they have developed to help them create some of the most advanced structures on the planet in collaboration with their clients, including the design of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.
In this interview with Rick he discusses how the team has expanded from a few individuals using parametric tools to a network of over 800, embracing automation and design exploration to enhance engineering creativity and client value. The 2022 launch of the Computational Design Skills Network marks a pivotal shift towards integrating sustainability into design processes early on, using multidisciplinary platforms for comprehensive solution analysis.
How the use of commercial software like Rhino3D, Grasshopper, and Autodesk Revit, alongside in-house developments like DesignCheck and TDA, empower Arup to automate design calculations and communicate solutions effectively. And how the integration of computational design has facilitated innovative projects demonstrating Arup’s commitment to efficiency, sustainability, and client engagement through cutting-edge design methodologies.
Could you describe your current position at ARUP and the evolution of the computational design team’s scope and size since you started in 2016? What have been the changes during the growth of the team, project complexity, and the integration of computational design methodologies within the broader engineering framework at ARUP during this period.
I’m currently a senior Structural Engineer and Computational Designer at Arup. Besides my core roles within our firm, I’m also appointed as Structural Digital Champion and Computational Design Skills Manager in Europe.
Looking back, our firm’s view on Computational Design and the use of Digital has significantly changed since I started in 2016.
When I started in 2016, parametric design tools like Grasshopper, were only used by a few people within Arup, whereas now we have a network of more than 800 people.
Automation and design exploration emerged over the years, which now makes it easier to do engineering, “Automate the boring, Engineer the awesome” (nice quote from Viktor AI), since you can spend more time on the design concept, instead of the actual calculations. This then also brings more value to our clients by exploring thousands of options within the same (or less) time than in a traditional process.
In 2022 Arup launched the Computational Design Skills Network, which encourages us to share knowledge, offer new digital services, do research on innovative initiatives, enable staff to use computational design by training and workshops and inspire others.
In our industry, there’s a newfound emphasis on aligning designs with sustainability goals. However, achieving this requires a fresh approach to engineering. We must take proactive steps to offer clients and partners a comprehensive set of sustainable options early in the planning process, even before settling on a design direction.
Using multidisciplinary computational design platforms, we can create various options, conduct analyses, utilize algorithms to find the best solutions, gather and store pertinent data, and present results in a compelling and informative manner.
For clients like municipal authorities or local government planners, this approach is invaluable for balancing various needs such as environmental concerns and land usage densities. For investors and developers, these tools and methods can uncover the business potential of land investments. Architects find them useful for assessing the consequences of different design choices effectively.
Could you discuss the commercial software your team currently utilizes, and detail the software developed in-house, particularly focusing on the specific needs or gaps it addresses with some examples of how it has been used on specific projects?
In Arup, we are using commercial (parametric) software tools like Rhino3D, Grasshopper, Autodesk Revit, RhinoInside Revit, and Dynamo.
A whole community in Arup shares experiences on the use of these tools, and we have forums where you can ask your questions on these softwares. We are also using Speckle for interaction between different software packages like the above, but also for interaction with actual engineering software (like Oasys GSA, ETABS, SAP2000 etc.).
In-house we have focused on two sorts of tools/platforms, one focussing on the internal members, helping with automation and design calculations, the other focussing on communicating our design to our clients.
The first focuses on automation. Arup has created DesignCheck, a framework for writing engineering calculations in code – calculations that are easy to automate, check, and share. DesignCheck calculations produce beautiful line-by-line output meaning everyone on your team can check what the computers have been up to. With this you can access the same calculations from all your favorite software and tools – including a web interface, desktop clients such as Excel, Grasshopper and Dynamo or from a range of popular programming languages.
DesignCheck can then be used on our Automation platform – TDA (Total Design Automation).
TDA is a platform that makes it easy for you to quickly create web apps for design and engineering tasks using widely available skills such as Grasshopper or Python. Apps can be created as easily as uploading a Grasshopper file. These apps can be linked together by data which streamlines the execution of larger workflows. These web apps are easy to share, update and maintain.
Designers and engineers who develop these apps only need to care for the actual engineering logic. All platform functionality, such as sign-in, browsing through projects, managing input and output data and versioning of apps is taken care of by the platform and the team that maintains it.
As example, we have created a Grasshopper script, utilizing a DesignCheck calculation on Embodied Carbon, in combination with our carbon database, which allows us to automatically query the database to obtain embodied carbon metrics. This enables us to rapidly quantify and compare the embodied carbon of different concept design options generated by the script.
The second focuses on design communication and exploration, with the tool Arup InForm.
Arup InForm, the Parametric Engine for Total Design, revolutionizes the design process in various building and infrastructure projects.
With its advanced analytics, it integrates client requirements and constraints to generate a wide range of feasible designs. This fosters real-time collaboration between designers and clients, expediting creativity while ensuring adherence to evolving standards such as energy efficiency and sustainability. Its Unique Selling Points include exploring the entire design space, embracing complexity for integrated designs, democratizing the process with an intuitive interface, designing based on analysis-driven data, offering flexibility for addressing new challenges, minimizing design waste, enabling revenue analysis for stakeholders, retaining design liability with Arup, and scaling capacity without organizational expansion.
As example, we designed Elements in Amsterdam using Arup InForm. Elements is a sustainable residential building designed with parametric principles by KondorWessels Vastgoed, Koschuch Architecten, and Arup, features a distinctive angular and iconic shape. It incorporates environmentally friendly elements such as a wood-hybrid structure, integrated PV panels, and a green roof, aiming to contribute to Amsterdam’s goal of becoming a climate-neutral city while offering a vibrant community space and innovative living experience.
© Beauty & the bit
How do you facilitate client access to these tools, and what impact has this had on your interactions with stakeholders, both within and outside the organization?
For the internal facing part, our stakeholders/clients are our colleagues using these platforms. They can simply access these tools by either downloading the clients in the specific software or go directly onto the platforms.
For the external facing part, we simply share a secured link to the project page on InForm, from which the client or design team can then explore the design options and make informed design decisions.
Have you noticed resistance to adopting these new tools, or is there widespread acceptance in the industries you engage with?
Clients have been fascinated about using/adopting these tools. They have actually embraced it right from the start, since they directly see the value of adopting this onto their projects. It de-risks their design process and it creates higher value because of integration of sustainability and comfort criteria from the start.
Even architects we work with started to embrace this design process using our tools. It is actually a collaborative effort. We discuss boundary conditions and ambitions up front, and collaboratively determine the variables and create a logic. With this we can generate alternatives, analyze, explore and evaluate them, and finally bring them into our visual interactive user interface.
Architects can explore more concepts using our workflow, directly receiving feedback on important KPIs.
How does data from previous projects contribute to future applications? Is there a need to start afresh for each project, or can past data be effectively reused to inform new endeavors?
Within Arup, we have a global collaborative effort of storing data on previous projects. For example, in 2022, Whole Life Carbon (WLC) data from almost 1,000 building projects across 30 nations on five continents were collected and analyzed using our in-house WLCA data collection platform, Zero.
Initial insights from Zero data have offered new, industry-relevant detail about where the largest embodied carbon reductions can be made by building subsystems, and can be used in our computational design scripts.
With your computational design team expanding significantly in recent years, how do you approach recruiting new members? What specific skills or experiences are you looking for in potential candidates?
Over the last few years we have been recruiting new colleagues directly from universities in the Netherlands, by being present at the two largest universities (TU/e and TUD). We support computational/parametric design courses and receive lots of interest in joining Arup, either as interns or as graduates.
We are not only recruiting on parametric design skills, like visual programming or scripting, but also looking at their design skill and computational design thinking. We usually give them a small design task during their interview, to assess these skills.
What we also notice over the last few years, is that students get more exposure to computational design in universities, which makes it also easier to recruit good candidates. As an example, when I studied in 2010-2016, there was no course on parametric/computational design, whereas now there are multiple courses covering these topics.
In your role at ARUP, focusing on the development of the computational design team’s skills and awareness, how do you manage to keep all team members, especially in a global distribution, updated with new information, software, data, and best practices?
Within our Computational Design Skills Network, we have monthly global leadership meetings, to align our regions on our plan, update with information and news, and discuss ideas. Each region will then have regional meetings where all offices within the region will be informed on all the topics through Computational Design Champions.
Besides sharing through our leadership top to bottom, we also have a forum and chat where our membership can share interesting articles in the news to keep up to date with all the latest fascinating work on Computational Design.
We also share a monthly newsletter with our network, to give updates to all members, and share on initiatives or research, share on the people in our network, share latest news and upcoming events. Events could be talks about projects, where colleagues share on what they have done, or events could be hackathons where computational design was key in the delivery.
At CDFAM in Berlin, your presentation will cover the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium project in Madrid. Could you explain how computational design thinking and processes were implemented in this project and the benefits they brought to the client?
The renovation of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, undertaken by Real Madrid, in collaboration with Arup and Spanish firm FCC, aimed at modernizing the iconic venue while prioritizing fan experience and energy efficiency.
Arup’s expertise in architecture, façade engineering, and lighting design played a pivotal role in enhancing the stadium’s functionality and aesthetic appeal.
A significant challenge faced by the design team was mitigating glare from the stadium’s futuristic metal façade, which could impact neighboring buildings and roads. Instead of costly solutions like altering reflectiveness, the team proposed a geometric approach to redirect sunlight and prevent glare. This involved rotating the upper part of the V-shaped façade, requiring around 720,000 calculations streamlined through parallel computing.
The innovative use of digital tools and mathematical methods, including Gaussian equations and numeric smoothing, minimized reflections while maintaining the stadium’s architectural integrity. This groundbreaking approach not only improved the stadium’s aesthetic but also set a new standard for efficiency in the industry.
Arup’s transformative methodology not only met the client’s objectives but also exceeded industry standards, showcasing their commitment to pushing boundaries in design. The implementation of parallel computing saved significant time and effort, accelerating the design process and enhancing productivity.
Overall, the renovation of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium’s façade exemplified Arup’s commitment to data-driven design, delivering substantial benefits in terms of efficiency, aesthetics, and integration with the surrounding environment. This project sets a precedent for future collaborations, propelling both Arup and its clients toward optimal, visually appealing solutions efficiently and collaboratively.
Beyond the specific insights on the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium project, what additional takeaways do you intend for the attendees at CDFAM to gain from your presentation?
I hope to inspire attendees on a few projects using Computational Design, and how they can bring along clients into this design process for the built environment, by incorporating essential KPIs for our industry.
Finally, what are your personal objectives and expectations from participating in this year’s event in Berlin?
I’m looking forward to meet my fellow speakers and other attendees to talk about their experiences on Computational Design and I expect a lot of enthusiasm!
To learn more about the work that Rick is undertaking at Arup, along with other leaders in the adoption of computational design at all scales, register to attend CDFAM Berlin for two days of expert level presentations and networking, May 7-8, 2024.
