Form follows availability – Designing structures through reuse

This work proposes a new direction in structural design: the synthesis of structures through the reuse of elements. Reusing structural elements reduces the environmental impacts of building structures because it avoids sourcing new material, it reduces waste and it requires little energy. Designing structures from reused elements is unlike conventional structural design because stock element availability is a design input. In other words, structures must be designed to fit given element characteristics, e.g. cross-sections and lengths. Stock constraints such as number of elements and element lengths, have a major influence on the optimal structure layout and form. In this new paradigm structural form follows availability. This work formulates new computational methods for the synthesis of reticular structures through reuse. Two scenarios are presented: a) reuse of reclaimed elements from a given stock, and b) design of a common stock which is used as a kit-of-parts to build diverse structures. Case studies are presented to demonstrate the potential of the proposed methods. It is shown that structures produced by these methods have a significantly lower environmental impact than minimum weight structures made of new elements.