Papers by François Denis
Buildings
Design for Disassembly (DfD) is a promising design strategy to improve resource efficiency in bui... more Design for Disassembly (DfD) is a promising design strategy to improve resource efficiency in buildings. To facilitate its application in design and construction practice, specific assessment tools are currently being developed. By reviewing the literature on DfD, including criteria and assessment methods, and with an explorative research approach on simple examples, we have developed a new method called Disassembly Network Analysis (DNA) to quantify the impact of DfD and link it to specific design improvements. The impact of DfD is measured in material flows generated during the disassembly of a building element. The DNA method uses network analysis and Building Information Modeling to deliver information about flows of recovered and lost materials and disassembly time. This paper presents the DNA method and two illustrative examples. Although DNA is still at a preliminary stage of development, it already shows the potential to compare assemblies and supports better-informed decisi...
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Thesis Chapters by François Denis
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In past times, the architects and the designers had their imagination and their line sketches as ... more In past times, the architects and the designers had their imagination and their line sketches as the only tools to create and represent their projects. While this allowed them to free their creativity, it also induced that most of their decisions were based either on their experience or on their personal vision but less frequently on objective and quantified parameters. With the development of digital 3D models, the idea of having a tool that uses objects instead of lines slowly came through, allowing the software to store data and " understand " the model as well as representing it. This is the beginning of Building Information Modelling (BIM), a kind of software as well as a process, strongly relying on data. Through that data, Building Information Modelling can represent physical and functional characteristics of a facility. However, even though BIM proved its usefulness for plan production, some architects still discuss its added value at early stage design. Indeed, it is commonly accepted that BIM use generates high return on investments for contractors but many architects claim that BIM use at early stage require a tremendous amount of work, especially if the project is stopped before completion. What if digital object-oriented solutions in general and BIM was an opportunity for the designer to develop his/her own tools. On one hand their core knowledge is in designing buildings not tools but on the other hand as users, they know exactly what they need and what is useful for them. This increasing need of specific tools lead to visual programming solutions such as Rhinoceros + Grasshopper or Revit + Dynamo which provide a simplified, user friendly and optimised interface allowing them to start designing tools. However, while only a few architectural schools teach programming skills to their students, all of them orient their learning around the architectural project. This paper showcases the IDE x AS framework which proposes to designers experienced with the architectural design process; key guidelines, rules and method to implement ideas and concepts within a digital script. While this method is completely software and language dependent, it will be showcased through scripts developed either in Grasshopper or in Dynamo. The structure of this method follows the general structure of the design process and is therefore divided in different phases with varying objectives. It proposes several ways to translate qualitative parameters – quite complex to handle for a computer-into quantitative ones depending on the designer's needs (threshold, ratio, fuzzy method) but also ways to display the result and ensure quick feedback to the user.
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The construction, maintenance and demolition of buildings represent a vast share on our environme... more The construction, maintenance and demolition of buildings represent a vast share on our environmental impact and generates a tremendous amount of waste. Our fast-evolving society also contributes to an increase of change rates in buildings and thus, waste. To solve those issues and move towards a circular built environment, Design for Change (DfC) was developed. In DfC, buildings are designed as time-dependent structures considering change. However, the current assessment of DfC principles is manual and not completely reproducible. Indeed, it relies on the expertise and personal analysis of an assessor and thus, may differ depending on his interpretation. Therefore, there is an opportunity to develop an objective method allowing designers to make better-informed decisions based on feedback. The information is gathered from a digital model throughout the design process and evolves by continuously updating and assessing parameters in accordance with the evolving buildings' complexity-first with rule of thumbs and later with exact calculations. This paper proposes to combine BIM and DfC through tools development and optimisation of the designers' decision-making process. This combination will benefit to both, the BIM implementation for architects by either generating an added value at early stage and the propagation of DfC by generalizing its concepts into reproducible and automated feedback. To do so, two major tools have been developed. The first proposes an analysis of Adaptability and Generality of buildings based on the room proportions and height, the potential of daylight, natural ventilation and the design choices. While the second maps the building into a network of components and qualifies their potential for reuse/disassembly. The two tools within the general design framework, will allow designers to integrate BIM and DfC earlier in the design process, contributing to the development, sharing and democratization of DfC by making it easier to implement and assess.
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Teaching Documents by François Denis
The ADEB-VBA’s (Association of major Belgian contractors) BIM work group, in collaboration with G... more The ADEB-VBA’s (Association of major Belgian contractors) BIM work group, in collaboration with G30 (Association of Architects), ORI (professional organisation for engineering offices and consultancy), SECO as representative for Third Party Control Offices and the Belgian chapter of IFMA (the international facility management association), is working on the improvement of collaboration and digital document exchanges between stakeholders of the Belgian construction industry. To do so, the work group decided to focus on the classical contract (Design-Tender-Build) and define practical guidelines related to digital exchanges within this classical context. Indeed, the classical contract supports a segmented industry while other types of contracts involving all the stakeholders earlier in the process allow an easier BIM implementation. However, today, the classical contract remains the most common contract in Belgium. Therefore, the BIM work group, instead of separating the classical contract and a digital-collaborative process, decided to define rules and guidelines allowing the BIM use on a classical Design-Tender-Build process. As the classical process is the most segmented one and thus, the one with more stakeholders working with different tools at different times, a specific attention has to be made during the transitional phases (e.g. new stakeholders, new tools) and the transposition of these rules could be easily developed to other contracts by shifting agreements between the different stakeholders earlier. This document and its annexes present a “generic protocol” as well as general rules and fact sheets allowing the stakeholders to define the collaboration rules and thus, optimize the working process. It should be stated that this document is supposed to evolve through feedback received from its use in practice. This document will be focused on three main topics: - First, this document will provide information about BIM, its use and the specific roles/actors that have to be taken into account and incorporated in a BIM process. - Second, general requirements related to BIM collaboration, document sharing and data management will be discussed. - Third, a generic BIM protocol by phase and supported by a process map representing the traditional contract will help stakeholders to determine their project-specific BIM protocol. Facility Managers are considered active stakeholders in the building life-cycle, hence, they are included in as active stakeholders in this handbook. This takes shape in two ways. First of all, at the end of the Design – Tender – Build process, the as-built information model should be decommissioned and handed over in an appropriate form to the facility manager, so that an improved building management can take place in the operational phase of the building (building use, building maintenance, rehabilitation assessment and design, demolition planning). Second, knowledge coming from the facility management domain (common practices, rules of thumb, common design errors) should find its way into the design – bid – build process via the appropriate BIM tools. The BIM handbook thus includes feedback mechanisms from facility managers into the BIM collaboration process from the very start of a project
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