Optimization techniques offer immense potential for the improvement of performance-driven design, since they allow the adoption of an holistic approach. This can lead to great advantages: optimal design solutions can be properly identified only if all criteria are considered at the same time, rather than separately. There are two barriers which obstruct optimization from being applied to building design: a technological barrier (applying the algorithms is not easy and can be quite time-consuming) and a cultural one (architects and engineers are required to change their perspectives as the...

This book explores how optimization-and performance-driven design in general-requires a change in the cultural approach to design for both architects and engineers. It shows how optimization techniques can be applied to the design of building envelopes.