Designing with Social Distancing in Mind

It will come as a relief to learn that raw materials for greater certainty, and the flexibility to keep up with a dynamic situation over the months, and possibly years, are all readily available. The likes of 2D and 3D CAD drawings for your building can be used to render a 3D model of the building which can be populated with realistic, intelligent agents whose behavior is modeled by pedestrian movement software.

One example of technology that can be used to help map social distancing in a building is MassMotion, which is used by global consulting engineers and architects. It’s rather timely that the software world’s ubiquitous move towards subscription rather than outright licensing has come now, just as professionals across the built environment are grappling with the need to understand pedestrian behavior in more detail than ever before.

Pedestrian simulation software like MassMotion is now being used to model social distancing requirements in buildings.

MassMotion implements proximity modeling tests and visualizes scenarios within computer models. Its native 3D design means that crucial potential pinch points like stairs and elevators are also modeled accurately and can be observed in animated visualizations. Its sheer power means that new parameters can be entered into the model and a new simulation will run to test new ideas within minutes. Proximity modeling tools are used to show how close people are likely to get and for how long and highlight risk areas.

Oasys added proximity modeling to its pedestrian simulation software and explained: “What the team has done is to produce a new set of analytics that can be drawn from the software. We have also accelerated some experimental research to give customers the ability to test personal space preferences.”

Technology for Existing Buildings

Technology such as MassMotion will be crucial in designing and building future structures to ensure social distancing is far more achievable for the building’s occupants. But how can other technological solutions help support social distancing measures in pre-existing buildings? After all, spatial awareness cannot be accurately relied upon.

Currently, personnel distancing systems known as PDS are being trialed around the country. These proximity warning gadgets can be fastened to a person’s arm or belt, or in the case of construction sites, onto a hard hat. The technology can also be added to lanyards or wrist bands. Once the exclusion zone has been programmed, these tags will sound an alarm and vibrate if the wearer gets too close to another wearer.

The Future of Building Management

Understanding and optimizing how people use space is increasingly recognized by architects, but can it also inform smart environmental and energy management?  As well as wearable smart sensors for people, there had been an innovation of smart sensors for buildings that detect the number of occupants in a space that would suggest that there is a growing overlap here.

Pedestrian movement analysis could be a long-term addition to our toolbox, not just an interim response to the pandemic.

About the Author

Amy Hodgetts is a content writer on behalf of Oasys, a leading commercial developer of engineering software. Ms. Hodgetts is a graduate from the University of Glasgow, with an undergraduate MA (Hons) in English Language

Key Resources

Interserve trials new social distancing warning technology on Birmingham hospital job

Technology to support social distancing in the new workplace

The post How Technology Can Support Social Distancing appeared first on Architosh.

A major consideration is the impact of higher populations on day-to-day life. Consider this: in 2016, there were 512 cities around the world with at least 1 million citizens. Currently, one in five of us lives in these cities. On top of this, it is expected that by 2030, an additional 150 cities will break the 1 million mark.

This doesn’t include the truly massive cities either. Dubbed ‘megacities,’ the 31 super-sized cities recorded in 2014 as having more than 10 million people living within them will rise to 41 by 2030. The density of these cities means that a small problem can quickly ripple through so many people and become a huge issue. Traffic flow can be managed, roads can have laws applied to them, but managing human beings is a whole different ball game. This is where computerized crowd simulation certainly shines, as it allows experts to gauge the most likely way people will choose to enter, move around, and leave a given building. This technology can be extended to predict the flow of people within entire districts, helping with designing and planning city layouts more efficiently.

Crowd simulation software solutions are critical to aiding the urban development of fast-moving cities and megacities around the world.

The technology was built in response to addressing knowledge gaps in the field. One such project that brought crowd simulation program MassMotion into effect was the redevelopment of the New York Fulton Centre interchange. With six subway lines already in place that had been designed without much futureproofing, the use of crowd simulation software proved vital for its successful redevelopment. From here, the program has flourished under academic guidance and use, and can now be applied to a variety of planning stages, such as for city planning.

Development points for successful urban planning cover:

• Streamlined model building, thanks to the ability to import entire BIM objects into the software. Structure analysis software will prove vital in the process of designing these buildings.
• Independent virtual pedestrians within the software that will react to situations as they develop.
• Virtual pedestrians with pre-programmable agendas.

New technology will prove fundamental for urban planning in these densely populated cities. With the ability to model vast volumes of people in a scenario, the use of crowd simulation will be vital in city planning for the coming years.

About the Author

Amy Hodgetts is a content writer on behalf of Oasys, a leading commercial developer of engineering software. Ms. Hodgetts is a graduate from the University of Glasgow, with an undergraduate MA (Hons) in English Language

Key Sources

https://www.prb.org/disaster-risk/

The post Viewpoint: Megacities—A Risk to the Masses?  appeared first on Architosh.

A Tool To Assist

Computer-based assistance really is just that: a tool to assist. The successful link between computer programmes and engineering skill varies depending on which part of the AEC industry they are being used in. To understand how this factor can impact their relationship, we must first look at the three main stages of engineering design.

1. Concept Design —  At this stage, the majority of the design comes from the imagination of the engineer, supported by some simple sizing elements or calculations.
2. Drafting and Analysis — This stage brings the concept design into the real world more earnestly, checking that it is feasible and how it will succeed. This stage is predominantly “computer-based” using programmes such as building design software (BIM/CAE/FEA) to help engineers work to a greater degree of accuracy.
3. Detailed Design — This stage is when, as the name suggests, the design becomes much more detailed (and real in terms of constructability). At this point, the design is almost completely computer-based, with analysis happening in the background

It’s likely that such processes will always require an aspect of creativity and imagination — the ability to think outside the box and problem-solve in new ways. But it’s not just the imaginative aspect that machines cannot replicate in full: fine tuning, for example, still needs a guiding human hand in order to ensure the outputs are correct. While leaps and bounds are certainly being made in machine learning, whereby computers can now make decisions based on historical data and records, it is highly unlikely that this will develop to the point where human skill and judgement become obsolete.

Naturally, human judgment is not flawless. Mistakes can be made when writing the programmes designed to support design, or further along the line when inputting data into these programmes. Either error will result in an inaccurate output. For this reason, the topic of automated checking—whereby computer programmes will check the input against previous projects and their success or failure—has been a hot point of discussion within the AEC industry lately. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the majority of engineering disasters have occurred due to something unusual; that is, something that has not happened in previous related projects. While rule-checkers help when situations where rules apply, they aren’t able to flag something that hasn’t happened in previous records, i.e. something unusual.

The Millennium Bridge in London was closed immediately after it was opened. Engineering software and human judgement must go hand-in hand and machine learning and AI are unlikely to remove human engineers anytime soon due to a range of complex issues. (image: John Hannen via pixabay.com)

There are many examples of such missed errors. For example, the Millennium Bridge’s well-known wobble was not picked up on at any point by the design’s code. Programmes failed to predict the wind instability of Tacoma Narrows. While engineers can make use of a value judgement, computer programmes do not. As the world changes, engineers will make a value judgement to adapt their designs accordingly.

In order for both human and technological processes to be as accurate as possible, formulas need to be crafted. There are several structures and designs that have had formulas developed exclusively for them. For example, the original formula creation for shell structures had to be created by expert mathematicians to ensure success. Now, with finite element analysis (FEA), almost any form can be analyzed—but that does not mean these forms are always sensible. There’s a certain amount of tension between architects and engineers surrounding this. Where engineers are seen as wanting functionality, architects are seen as wanting novelty first. But this disparity makes for the perfect partnership towards the best designs.

About The Author

Amy Hodgetts is a content writer on behalf of Oasys, a leading commercial developer of engineering software. Ms. Hodgetts is a graduate from the University of Glasgow, with an undergraduate MA (Hons) in English Language.

The post Viewpoint: Will Computer Programmes Replace Human Engineering Skill? appeared first on Architosh.