KarambaA Toolkit for Parametric Structural Design

Clemens Preisinger, Dipl.-Ing., Dr., University of Applied Arts Vienna, Structural Design, Vienna, Austria;
Moritz Heimrath, Mag. Arch., Bollinger Grohmann Schneider ZT GmbH, Research and Development, Vienna, Austria.
Contact: info@karamba3d.com
DOI: 10.2749/101686614X13830790993483

Abstract symbolize operations. Figure 1 shows

a simple case where a GH definition
An increasing number of architectural design practices harness the power of is used to sum up four user-defined
parametric design tools. The aim of these tools is to facilitate and control com- numbers. Algorithms formulated in
plex building geometries. Parametric design programs such as Grasshopper such a way lack features of traditional
(GH) for Rhino or Generative Components popularized this approach by pro- programming languages such as loops.
viding easy-to-use visual programming environments that integrate with com- This makes them easier to learn and
puter-aided design (CAD) packages. A logical next step consists in connecting enables users to express geometric
parametric designs to applications that evaluate non-geometric aspects such as production rules without the need of
building physics or structural performance. This brings about new opportunities having to think in terms of a program-
of collaboration between architects and engineers in the early stages of build- ming language. When necessity arises
ing design. The ease of testing alternatives by tweaking a set of parameters also though, GH definitions can be supple-
opens the door for the application of generic optimization algorithms. Karamba is mented by custom scripts (devised
a finite element program geared towards interactive use in the parametric design in C# or Visual Basic) that provide a
environment GH. Being a GH plug-in, it seamlessly integrates with the diverse higher level of expressiveness.
habitat of other third party programs available for GH. These range from build-
ing physics applications to genetic optimization engines. In the authors company,
Karamba is used in early-stage design, form-finding, and structural optimization. Parametric Structural Design
White Noise, a mobile exhibition pavilion for the Salzburg Biennale, serves Currently, parametric design strate-
as a case study that shows how Karamba can be used to optimize the structural gies focus on the generation of geom-
performance of intricate building geometries. etriesprimarily in an architectural
Keywords: parametric design environment; structural; interactive; finite context. They allow the user to test a
elements; optimization; integrated planning process. large number of different but related
geometries without much effort. This is
most important in early design stages
where a complex network of contra-
Introduction drawing. One early approach consisted dicting architectural objectives needs
in recording the history of commands to be considered for finding the best
Digital tools have transformed the that lead to a given geometry. The solution.
process of architectural and struc- command history implicitly stores the
tural design tremendously since Presently, applications of paramet-
dependencies between the objects of
they superseded the drawing board ric tools in structural design remain
a drawing. It can be used to update
about 20 years ago. One feature that scarce. This is rooted in the traditional
elements (e.g. lines) when their par-
remained constant though, is the fact approach to building projects where
ent entities from which they derive
that designs tend to change signifi- architects hand over a frozen geom-
(e.g. points) change. This offers flex-
cantly from conception to completion. etry for further analysis to structural
ibility with respect to the input param-
Therefore, increased flexibility consti- engineers. Typical finite element (FE)
eters (e.g. point coordinates): A series
tutes the key feature that motivates programs are geared toward thor-
of commands can be automatically
the adoption of new design technolo- ough analysis of a given structure that
re-executed in a preset order to cre-
gies: Computer-aided design (CAD) does not change significantly in the
ate an altered version of the original
programs became popular because course of design. The current trend of
geometry.
they allowed to change a digital draw- increased complexity of architectural
ing with a few clicks of a mouse instead The next step in enhancing flexibility designs entails the need to incorporate
of having to use a razor blade on a of geometry creation consisted in mak- structural assessment early on. The
large sheet of paper. ing the history explicit and letting the ideal solution would be an automated
user control the order of commands. feedback loop between architectural
Later on, flexibility was further Current parametric design environ- design and structural response in real
enhanced by adding context informa- ments such as Generative Components time: An architect changes the param-
tion to the constituents of a digital (GC)1 or Grasshopper (GH)2 imple- eters of his or her design and receives
ment that idea. They provide the immediate response regarding the
user with a visual environment where impact on structural performance.
Peer-reviewed by international ex-
perts and accepted for publication
commands can be linked together to In later project stages, flexibility and
by SEI Editorial Board form a directed acyclic graph (Fig. 1): tolerance toward changes are no less
Data flows through the graph edges beneficial as in practice architectural
Paper received: July 15, 2013 (visualized as pipes) from left to right designs tend to change even after
Paper accepted: November 18, 2013 and gets processed at the vertices that being frozen.

Structural Engineering International 2/2014 Scientific Paper 217

 and offer the same look and feel as
1 native components.
A 3

A+B
The structural design toolkit Karamba
R
B takes advantage of this feature of GH
and enlarges the range of GH entities
2
with objects symbolizing beams, shells,
A

A+B
R 10 materials, cross sections, supports,
B loads or whole structural models. The
software design of Karamba adheres
3 to the principle of object orientation.
A A+B This offers the advantage that there is
R
B a one-to-one correspondence between
7 objects visible in the GH user interface
4 and the internal objects used for calcu-
lation in Karamba. As a consequence,
Fig. 1: Grasshopper definitions form directed acyclic graphs: Data flows from left to right the user is given fine-grained control
through pipes; graph vertices represent operations such as addition of two numbers over all properties of the structural
model including the retrieval of results.
Structural models in Karamba behave
Many current FE packages allow been chosen for the software design
like normal GH objects: They can be
communication with other programs of the parametric FE toolkit named
fed into components for static analysis
via an application programming inter- Karamba.5
or results retrieval, copied or decom-
face (API). They can thus be remote
posed into their constituents. Karamba
controlled from custom written pro- Implementation is a self-contained FE solverit lives
grams. This possibility has been used of a Parametric Structural inside GH. Therefore, calculation data
in the past by researchers who linked Design Toolkit need not be passed between different
parametric design environments applications, which brings about a con-
and off-the-shelf FE programs.3,4 For the implementation of the para- siderable reduction of reaction time
Traditional FE-solvers come as mono- metric design toolkit Karamba, the as compared with using external FE
lithic stand-alone applications, which visual computing environment GH was engines.
are not optimized for integrated chosen. GH comes as a free plug-in for
use. Therefore, it takes considerable the three-dimensional (3D) modeler
time to pass structural data to such Rhinoceros and features a thriving Setup of a Parametric
programs, to analyze it and retrieve online community. GHs base function- Structural Model
results. In order to appear truly inter- ality can be extended via plug-ins
active, quick response is however of programs written in one of the dot net Figure 2 shows the main parts of a
utmost importance. This is the rea- languages. These plug-ins seamlessly model definition with Karamba: The
son why a different approach has integrate into the user interface of GH gray rectangles symbolize operations

Create Convert Assemble Analyze View

Define

Fig. 2: Definition of a structural model with Karamba

218 Scientific Paper Structural Engineering International 2/2014

that manipulate data that flows from
left to right. The focus of GH lies in
processing geometric entities and thus
offers objects that represent points,
lines, and meshes. They form the basis
for building a structural model (see
Fig. 2 create).
To be useful in a structural context
the geometric entities need to be
converted into structural elements.
Currently Karamba provides beams,
trusses, and shells. The component
LineToBeam from the Karamba
tools selection takes lines as input and
performs preliminary checks on them:
optionally removes duplicate lines (i.e.
lines that lie on top of each other)
and determines their connectivity.
Inaccurate geometry (e.g. lines whose
endpoints do not exactly meet) can be
dealt with by defining tolerances for
snapping together neighboring points.
The output of the LineToBeam com-
ponent consists of structural elements
with default cross section and material
properties. They can be given names
for later reference, for example, when
applying non-default materials or cross
sections later on.
Other structural constituents such
as supports, loads, and cross sections
get defined in a similar fashion (see
Fig. 2 define). The combined struc-
tural information supplied by the
user forms a model object, which can
be subjected to structural calcula-
tion. Analysis options include static
deflections, natural vibrations or cross
section optimization among others
according to EC3.
In GH, data travels from left to right.
This means that models can be ana-
lyzed multiple times under different
aspects. The result data attach to the
model and thus move together with it.
The properties of a structural model
can be viewed at arbitrary states (see
Fig. 2 view). Karamba uses the
Rhino viewport to visualize model
information. The available viewing
options resemble those of standard
FE programs: display of basic model
data in order to check model integrity
or correctness of element properties,
displaced model shapes, support reac-
tions, element stresses and the like.
An important feature of Karamba
models is that they can be decomposed
into their components (e.g. FEs, sup-
ports, loads) and reassembled to form
different configurations. This allows
incorporating the structural behavior
(e.g. displacements) of a previously
analyzed model into user-defined
Structural Engineering International 2/2014
Fig. 3: Rendering of the temporary pavilion White Noise from the architectural
competition entry
form-finding processes or optimization
strategies.
Application to Real-World
Structures
In the structural engineering office,
Karamba can be used at all stages of
project development: from structural
assessment of architectural competi-
tion entries to design development and
generation of construction documents.
The project White Noise will be used
to describe how Karamba fits into the
structural design process.
Figure 3 shows a rendering of the
structure from the architectural com-
petition entry. The task was to design
a temporary pavilion for the Salzburg
Biennalean art festival in the city of
Salzburg that takes place every 2 years.
The structure should be easy to assem-
ble, disassemble and transport on road.
In plan view the pavilion measures
12 m 20 m.
In order to fulfill the weight constraint,
aluminum was chosen as the main con-
struction material. The structure had to
be divided into several modules that fit
into conventional low-loading trucks
and could later be joined on-site using
prestressed bolt connections.
It proved difficult to generate a viable
load-bearing structure from the geo-
metric principles outlined in the ini-
tial competition entry. Figure 4 takes a
closer look at one of the five main parts
of the pavilion. Aluminum rods of uni-
form length of 2 m were positioned on
parallel layers that have a mutual dis-
tance of 0,2 m. A non-uniform rational
B-Splines (NURBS) surface defined
the interior of the pavilion wherein the
finished structure, a prestressed mem-
brane, shields visitors from wind and
rain. This surface may not be crossed
by structural members and thus deter-
mined their starting points. In order to
arrive at a structure of uniform visual
density, the inner starting points of rods
were positioned at uniform mutual
distance with a phase shift between
neighboring layers (Fig. 4). The incli-
nation of the aluminum rods should
differ within a certain range, following
global rules for aggregation and allow-
ing for an individual behavior. The aim
was to keep the visitors focus switch-
ing between single members and the
integrated whole. The aluminum rods
had to adhere to the condition that no
two members of the same layer over-
lap. This constraint came from the side
of architectural design. Figure 4 shows
how the members of neighboring lay-
ers (colored blue and red) are joined
to each other: where two members
cross they get connected via circular
studs (symbolized in the drawing as
black circles). The structural perfor-
mance of the pavilion thus depended
heavily on the relative position of the
aluminum rods.
Based on the given geometry of the
inner hull and the constraints for-
mulated above, a parametric model
was set up in GH. Twenty parameters
controlled the orientation of the alu-
minum rods. The positions of the con-
necting circular studs between them
were determined using GHs geometric
analysis capabilities.
For each of the five main parts, a static
model was created using Karamba.
Although different in shape, one basic
setup for geometry and structural
Scientific Paper 219

Fig. 4: The load carrying structure consists of parallel layers of differently inclined
aluminum rods that connect to each other via circular studs
Fig. 5: Calculated deflections at the beginning of the structural optimization procedure
model proofed sufficient for all five
main parts. As the geometry of the
inner hull constitutes just one more
input parameter, it simply had to be
switched from part to part with the rest
of the parametric definition remaining
unchanged.
Figure 5 shows an axis model of
the initial geometry (red) and the
deformed structure (yellow) with mag-
nified deflections. The green arrows
at the base of the structure represent
supports against nodal translations.
Wind in horizontal direction proved
to be the governing load case in most
situations, but also the loads from the
220 Scientific Paper
prestressed membrane contributed
significantly to the stress in the ele-
ments and connections.
For each of the partial models, the 20
free parameters had to be determined
in such a way that neither usability
was impaired by large deflections nor
stresses in the elements and connec-
tions exceeded the allowable limit.
There exists no continuously differen-
tiable relationship between the inclina-
tion of the aluminum rods and overall
structural performance because the
number of connections changes in a
stepwise fashion. Owing to the open
platform philosophy of GH, there are
Structural Engineering International 2/2014
several solvers freely available that can
handle such problems efficiently. For
the job at hand, a genetic algorithm
solver called Galapagos7 was used.
Genetic algorithm procedures8 work
along the principles of natural selec-
tion. They breed solutions from an ini-
tial, randomly generated population of
parameter sets. By evaluating a large
number of solutions with respect to
a fitness function, genetic algorithms
gradually converge to reasonably
good solutions even for very difficult
problems.
In the case of the White Noise pavilion,
three criteria were considered for driv-
ing the optimization process:
1. Largest displacement dmax in the
structure under exterior loadsto be
minimized to ensure serviceability.
2. Number of connections ncon
between the aluminum rodsto be
minimized in order to lower produc-
tion effort and cost.
3. A global variation value vvar, which
measured the difference of inclina-
tion of neighboring membersto be
maximized for esthetic reasons.
In order to feed the genetic algorithm
solver with a single fitness function,
the three criteria were combined using
the following heuristic formula:
Fitness = vvar/(dmaxncon)
The numbers of fitness evaluations for
different sets of input parameters were
in the range of several ten thousands.
One optimization run took roughly 4 h
on a quad-core workstation.
Figure 6 shows the pavilion White Noise
after completion on the Mozart Platz in
Salzburg. A comparison with the initial
competition rendering in Fig. 3 proves
that the structure could be realized
according to the architects design intent.
Conclusions
Parametric visual design environments
provide a powerful, flexible tool for
defining and handling complex geom-
etries. They enable users to express
their general idea about structural
shapes in an algorithmic way without
the need to resort to formal program-
ming languages. Owing to their depen-
dence on parameters, algorithmically
defined geometries can be changed
easily: either interactively in order
to study the architectural qualities of
alternatives or automatically in combi-
nation with optimization engines. The
parametric structural design toolkit

Fig. 6: The temporary pavilion White Noise on the Mozart Platz in Salzburg (Photo:
F. Hafele)
Karamba builds upon GH, which is
a parametric design environment for
the 3D modeler Rhinoceros. Karamba
can be used to give instant feedback
about the structural performance of
parametric geometries. The structural
design and optimization of the tem-
porary pavilion White Noise shows
how Karamba was used to generate an
efficient load-bearing structure while
adhering to the original architectural
design intent.
References
[1] Aish R. Introduction to Generative
Components, A parametric and associative
design system for architecture, building engi-
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[2] McNeel R. Grasshopper. website http://grass-
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[3] Coenders J. Approximating complex shapes
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[4] Odysseas G. Interactive structural analysis &
form finding. IABSE-IASS Symposium 2011
Taller, Longer, Lighter, 2011.
[5] Preisinger C. Karamba parametric struc-
tural modeling, user manual for version 1.0.3.
http://karamba3d.com, 2013.
[6] Rutzinger S, Schinegger K, Hofmann A,
Heimrath M. Adaptive design of a music pavil-
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Structural Engineering International 2/2014 Scientific Paper 221