Towards the Continuous Automated Testing of Building Design

Abstract

In recent years the AEC industry has started implementing more new technologies. Still, the adoption process is slow. One of the crucial steps during the building designing is a justification of design according to previously defined requirements. That process is still manual to a large extent, therefore unnecessarily time-consuming and prone to errors. The need for automation of requirements compliance checking has been rising in recent years, and the science community presented various approaches for automation. Still, most of the proposed methods has similar problems: using a black-box approach, require that the designer is highly skilled in programming, focusing on only geometric requirements and not covering whole process of compliance checking. Therefore, there is a need for a new approach that can solve all these problems. The rise in popularity of parametric design and tools like Grasshopper opens the possibility to overcome some of the current limitations. Also, the possibility of using requirements management software to have the process fully organized supports the belief in automating compliance checking. The fundamental objective of this project is to explore the possibilities of automating the requirements verification for a building design by using requirements management software to systematically structure the requirements and Grasshopper to generate the rules, which afterwards can be verified. To achieve this objective, the project was divided into three main parts. First, the conceptual framework for automated code checking is developed. Afterwards, the system architecture of the prototype tool was explored, and instructions for scripting the tool were given. Finally, after the tool was scripted, it was tested on a real building model.

From the literature review the two main types of requirements are found, the functional and performance requirement. Since the functional requirements are qualitative and cannot be quantified, that category is not suitable for checking with the approach proposed in this project. Therefore, the focus was on performance requirements. The central part of the project is the creation of a framework for automated compliance checking. The five steps are defined and these are:
1.) Requirements defining and logical structuring into RMS
2.) Interpretation of requirements
3.) Building model preparation
4.) Checking phase
5.) Reporting phase

After the theoretical basis is set, the modelling of the tool is elaborated. Firstly, the requirements for the tool are set. Afterwards, the system architecture is explored, and finally, instructions for scripting the tool are developed.

After the prototype tool is scripted, it is tested on a real building model, and it shows clear advantages compared to other approaches or manual work, still, it also has some disadvantages.
Test of the tool proved that the Visual programming language environment is a great platform for developing a white-box approach for automated compliance checking. Also, testing on the real-world building model shows that a five-step approach for automated testing of building design works and can be used. Lastly, the test shows that the proposed system architecture and instructions for scripting the tool can result in a well-operating tool.

Finally, recommendations for future research are given.