Given the over-abundance of building construction and demolition, this project proposes an optimization methodology to make use of “leftover” materials from construction as opposed to the energy-intensive process of manufacturing custom parts from scratch.
The computation for this research problem is formulated to address these questions and concerns: how can material waste be minimized, and what geometric and structural diversity can occur as a result of using salvaged materials?
As a case study, this research assumes that the leftover material is a stack of typical 2x4 wood members, all with varying lengths. These lengths have been randomized.
The eight leftover members need to be organized into two triangular frames, which will be the formwork for the structural shell. These triangular frames are optimized to reduce the length of unused 2x4.
The final optimization sequence focuses on the geometry of the resulting shell from the two triangular frames. A number of “near-optimal” solutions allow for heuristic decision-making to choose the solution to be implemented.