Multidisciplinary Process Integration and Design Optimization of a Classroom Building

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) professionals typically generate and analyze very few design alternatives during the conceptual stage of a project. One primary cause is limitations in the processes and software tools used by the AEC industry. The aerospace industry has overcome similar limitations by using Process Integration and Design Optimization (PIDO) software to support Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO), resulting in a significant reduction to design cycle time as well as improved product performance. This paper describes a test application of PIDO to an AEC case study: the MDO of a classroom building for structural and energy performance. We demonstrate how PIDO can enable orders of magnitude improvement in the number of design cycles typically achieved in practice, and assess PIDO’s potential to improve AEC MDO processes and products.