Christoph Langenhan

Technical University of Munich | TUM · Department of Architecture

Similar process models of the architectural design process of the early design stages have been formalised. However, recognition by machine learning (ML) based approaches fails due to the individuality and vagueness of the inherent method of sketching. Nevertheless, contemporary ML approaches have the potential to support the architectural design p...

ECPPM 2022

In order to meet the housing demands of the future, architects need to work faster and more efficiently while improving architectural quality. The metis projects aim to create an intelligent design assistant supporting architects during the early design stages through suggesting further design steps for spatial layouting, based on the best practice...

Within this paper we propose an interdisciplinary approach at the interface of computer science and architecture to predict design phases using a deep neural network, based on archi-tects' hand drawings. The overall goal of the metis projects is to provide architects with appropriate design step suggestions using deep learning (DL) and based on sem...

This paper presents the current research state and possible future developments of AI-based autocompletion of architectural floor plans and shows demand for its establishment in computer-aided architectural design. Foundations of data representations together with the autocompletion contexts are defined, existing methods described and evaluated in...

Sketching is a craft supporting the development of ideas and design intentions, as well as an effective tool for communication during the early architectural design stages by making them tangible. Even though sketch-based interaction is a promising approach for Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) systems, it remains a challenge for computers...

In the next thirty years, the world's population is expected to increase to ten billion people, posing major challenges for the construction industry. To meet the growing demands for residential housing in the future, architects need to work faster, more efficiently, and more sustainably, while increasing architectural quality. The hypothetical int...

This paper presents an extended evaluation of tensor-based representations of graph-based architectural room configurations. This experiment is a continuation of examination of recognition of semantic architectural features by contemporary standard deep learning methods. The main aim of this evaluation is to investigate how the deep learning models...

The COVID-19 pandemic has immense impact on our daily life. Precautions like facemasks and social distancing restrict the economy as well as the social life. The aim of the bachelor project was to support architects by integrating health specifications into a software environment and automatically derive specific design support by analyzing archite...

Sketching is an effective means for architects to develop design thoughts and to communicate ideas. It is a promising method for an interaction with CAAD systems that integrates naturally in the process of early conceptual design. A challenge for the realisation of sketched-based interaction, is for the computer to recognise what the designer is dr...

The gradual rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its increasing visibility among many research disciplines affected Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD). Architectural deep learning (DL) approaches are being developed and published on a regular basis, such as retrieval (Sharma et al. 2017) or design style manipulation (Newton 2019; Silves...

This paper presents a system for case-based retrieval of architectural designs in the form of graph-based room configurations by means of applying a case preselection process using a convolutional neural network and the subsequent graph and subgraph matching on the preselected cases. An integral part of the system is its specific user interface tha...

School buildings are currently one of the largest portions of planning and building projects in Germany. In order to reflect the continuous developments in school building construction with constantly changing spatial requirements, an approach to analyse, derive and combine patterns of schools is proposed to adapt school typologies accordingly. The...

In this paper, current, past, and planned student graduation projects in the context of MetisCBR, the distributed AI framework for intelligent support of the early room configuration process in architectural design, will be presented. During the last years, a number of such projects were initiated to achieve a master’s or bachelor’s degree. All the...

In order to recommend architects design options, a system was developed which uses artificial intelligence (AI) methods of case-based reasoning (CBR) and deep learning. Since the system uses deep learning, it requires a sufficient amount of data for training, but currently, not enough amount of semantic building data is available publically. In thi...

This paper presents a system for case-based retrieval of architectural designs in the form of graph-based room configurations by means of applying a case preselection process using a convolutional neural network and the subsequent graph and subgraph matching on the preselected cases. An integral part of the system is its specific user interface tha...

This paper introduces FLEA-CBR, an alternative approach for composition of case-based reasoning (CBR) processes. FLEA-CBR extends the original 4R (Retrieve, Reuse, Revise, Retain) CBR cycle with a flexible order of execution of its main steps. Additionally, a number of combinatorial features for a more comprehensive and enhanced composition can be...

The artificial intelligence methods, such as case-based reasoning and artificial neural networks were already applied to the task of architectural design support in a multitude of specific approaches and tools. However, modern AI trends, such as Explainable AI (XAI), and additional features, such as providing contextual suggestions for the next ste...

As the complexity of building tasks and requirements increases, designers often find themselves confronted with interdisciplinary problems that go beyond the specific challenges and methods of architecture. The iterative nature of the design process results in a continuous exchange between creative, analytical and evaluative activities, through whi...

In this paper, we describe the general structure and evaluation of a multi-agent based system module that was conceptualized to explain, and therefore, enrich the search results of the retrieval process within a distributed case-based framework for support of early conceptual design phase in architecture. This explanation module is implemented as a...

Background Technological developments and globalized working processes have transformed the building process. However, current digital semantic building models no longer adequately represent the increasing complexity of modern building projects. The potential of combining agent-based and graph-based methods, for example for energy calculations or s...

This paper presents results of a user study into extending the functionality of an existing case-based search engine for similar architectural designs to a flexible process-oriented case-based support tool for the architectural conceptualization phase. Based on a research examining the target group’s (architects) thinking and working processes duri...

Die Entwicklung der Architektur ist von kontinuierlicher Veränderung durch gesellschaftliche und technologische Rahmenbedingungen geprägt. Aktuell sind digitale Planungsinformationen in ständig wachsendem Umfang vorhanden, jedoch nur zu einem geringen Teil zugänglich, da geeignete Organisations- und Recherchestrategien für existierende und zukünfti...

While computer-based design tools are widely used in architecure during late design phases for creating final floor plans, early design phases usually still take place in a traditional manner, using pen, paper and scissors. At the beginning of these phases, there is often only a rough idea of how a building should look like. Viewing existing floorp...

Die Entwicklung der Architektur ist von kontinuierlicher Veränderung durch gesellschaftliche und technologische Rahmenbedingungen geprägt. Aktuell sind digitale Planungsinformationen in ständig wachsendem Umfang vorhanden, jedoch nur zu einem geringen Teil zugänglich, da geeignete Organisations- und Recherchestrategien für existierende und zukünfti...

To support the early conceptualization phase in architecture with computer-aided solutions, in particular, with retrieval systems that can find similarly structured building designs in comprehensive collections of such designs, a number of approaches were presented to date. In the Metis project two retrieval coordination approaches (coordinators) w...

Technologische Entwicklungen und globalisierte Arbeitsprozesse verändern die Abläufe im Bauwesen. Jedoch wird die steigende Komplexität der Bauaufgaben aktuell nur unzureichend mit digitalen semantischen Gebäudemodellen unterstützt. Beispielsweise werden topologische Ansätze für energetische Berechnungen oder räumliche Recherchestrategien nicht aus...

In the early stages of the design process, the conceptual idea of the envisaged building and its design parameters is still vague and incom-plete. While the built environment, the end product of this design pro-cess, can be represented concretely in the form of drawings or com-puter models, the initial design idea can usually only be formulated abs...

Initial design phases, also referred as conceptual design phases, in architecture usually still take place by using pen, paper and scissors and without the involvement of dedicated computer programs. Hence, in the conceptual design phases, intensive and therefore time-consuming investigations have to take place. However, automated searches for desi...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) ist in aller Munde. Diese innovative Technologie, die auf der durchgängigen Verwendung digitaler Bauwerksmodelle beruht, ist dabei, die Planungs-, Ausführungs- und Betriebsprozesse im Bauwesen grundlegend zu revolutionieren. Das Buch erläutert ausführlich die informationstechnischen Grundlagen der BIM-Methode und...

Die Digitalisierung der Gesellschaft schreitet stetig voran und führt zu Veränderungen im täglichen Leben und Arbeiten. Die Digitalisierung im Bauwesen – aktuell der Übergang von CAD zu BIM – ist Chance und Herausforderung zugleich. Die Vorteile von BIM können besonders effizient genutzt werden, wenn der gesamte Bauprozess betrachtet wird. Dies set...

The complexity of the requirements on buildings is continuously increasing and thus, often confronting designers with interdisciplinary problems, reaching far beyond the traditional challenges and methods of architecture and engineering. Moreover, designers are often required to take decisions, when most of the information and knowledge is still mi...

Building information modeling (BIM) principles are transforming today's communication and working processes in the field of construction, however the early design phases are only rarely supported and information technology is therefore not exploited to its full potential. The early design phases are characterised by an iterative process of searchin...

The contribution of this article is two-fold. First, we propose a sketch-based system, namely the a.SCatch system, for querying a floor plan repository. Second, for generating such a repository, a novel complete system for floor plan analysis is presented. The latter system extracts the semantics from existing floor plans.We introduce novel preproc...

In this paper we present a method for a graph-based retrieval and its application in architectural floor plan retrieval. The proposed method is an extension of a well-known method for subgraph matching. This extension significantly reduces the storage amount and indexing time for graphs where the nodes are labeled with a rather small amount of diff...

The paper focuses on the early stages of the design process where the architect needs assistance in finding reference projects and describes different aspects of a concept for retrieving previous design solutions with similar structural characteristics. The proposed system offers a computational approach to extracting a few characteristic and promi...

Architects’ daily routine involves working with drawings. They use either a pen or a computer to sketch out their ideas or to do a drawing to scale. We therefore propose the use of a sketch-based approach when using the floor plan repository for queries. This enables the user of the system to sketch a schematic abstraction of a floor plan and searc...

The paper focuses on the early stages of the design process where the architect needs assistance in finding reference projects and describes different aspects of a concept for retrieving previous design solutions with similar structural characteristics. A semantic fingerprint is proposed that contains a clear spatial description of an architectural...