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Floor vibration, although not a safety concern, is a prevalent performance complaint in multi-story structures. With the increasing use of mass timber construction, various types of long-span timber floors (LSTFs), including plain cross-laminated timber (CLT), CLT with secondary beams (ribbed-deck), and hybrid systems such as timber–concrete composite (TCC) and CLT on-steel-support beams, are gaining popularity. However, due to limited knowledge regarding their vibration characteristics and acceptance criteria, these construction types are often overlooked during the design stage by architects, engineers, and builders. Existing standards and guidelines primarily calibrated for steel and concrete floors lack a validated and calibrated method for evaluating the vibration performance of LSTFs. Nonetheless, it is essential for structural engineers to address vibration concerns during the design stage and potentially investigate excessive vibration in existing buildings, providing mitigation solutions. This article provides a comprehensive overview, discussion, and analysis of the measurement, analysis, design, perception, and acceptability of vibration of timber floors as outlined in international standards and commonly used guidelines. Experimental and theoretical case studies, including vibration measurements of a CLT floor and a comparison of vibration acceptability in lightweight timber floors using different methods, are reported. The results highlight discrepancies between simplified equation calculations and modal analysis observations, underscoring the limitations of relying solely on simplified equations. Furthermore, it is observed that current modal superposition methods tend to be conservative in predicting floor acceleration and velocity responses. Recommendations are provided for future research in the field to enhance floor vibration assessment techniques, aiming for improved design optimization and occupant comfort.

The quantitative design on area and location of building façade’s windows has a significant impact on interior light and heat environment, which is also very instructive for preliminary and remodeling design of buildings. However, previous studies paid more attention to the thermal insulation construction and shading based on design parameters from the perspective of designers, but neglected the fact that the geometric properties of the windows themselves are equally important for building energy efficiency. Secondly, the weak interactivity and algorithmic limitations of traditional simulation platforms prevent rapid access to ideal design strategies. Therefore, this paper takes the standard floor of a high-rise office building as the research object in cold region−Yantai, facing façade windowing design, the three building performance objectives of each office unit−Annual Cooling Energy Consumption (AC), Annual Heating Energy Consumption (AH) and Annual Lighting Energy Consumption (AL)−are simulated and single/multi-objective optimized by relying on Ladybug and Honeybee (LB + HB) platform and Hypervolume Estimation Genetic Algorithm (HypE-GA) to obtain the genome of Pareto−Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR), Window Height (WH) and Sill Height (SH)−at the lowest of each performance objective in order to determine the most energy-efficient façade windowing expression. The results show that AH and AC, their sum of quantities remains stable, are main energy consumption sources of office buildings, while the change of AL is more likely to have an impact than the others’ on Annual Totaling Energy Consumption (AT). The analysis points out that different windowing strategies can be adopted for different performance objectives. To reduce AC, priority is given to windowing on the east and north facade, with East Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR E ) at 0.2 ~ 0.3 and North Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR N ) at 0.3 ~ 0.5; to reduce AH, windows on the west and north facade should not be opened, and the remaining facades should be opened in small areas; to reduce AL, WWR> 0.7 is appropriate for each facade, and should be considered to matching a higher SH or WH; From AT, the average WWR in the single-objective and multi-objective optimization results are similar, so it is suggested that the WWR of each facade of office buildings in Yantai area is WWR E = 0.47, North South Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR S ) = 0.46, West Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR W ) = 0.18 and WWR N = 0.54. In addition, this paper proposes a method that can quickly find the Pareto optimal solution by clustering analysis on optimized results through Origin in multi-objective HypE-GA optimization study.

PurposeThis study examined data from 13 international tall residential timber building case studies to increase our understanding of the emerging global trends.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through literature surveys and case studies to examine the architectural, structural and constructional points of view to contribute to knowledge about the increasing high-rise timber constructions globally.FindingsThe main findings of this study indicated that: (1) central cores were the most preferred type 10 of core arrangements; (2) frequent use of prismatic forms with rectilinear plans and regular extrusions were identified; (3) the floor-to-floor heights range between 2.81 and 3.30 m with an average of 3 m; (4) the dominance of massive timber use over hybrid construction was observed; (5) the most used structural system was the shear wall system; (6) generally, fire resistance in primary and secondary structural elements exceeded the minimum values specified in the building codes; (7) the reference sound insulation values used for airborne and impact sounds had an average of 50 and 56 dB, respectively.Originality/valueThere is no study in the literature that comprehensively examines the main architectural and structural design considerations of contemporary tall residential timber buildings.

This paper investigates the effects of concrete grades and column spacings on the optimal design of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings. To this end, cost design optimization was performed for buildings with three different floor systems: flat plates (FS), flat slabs with drop panels (FSDP), and solid slabs (SS). The evolutionary method provided by the Excel solver was used as the optimization algorithm because it can deal with the complex nature of structural design problems. The objective function was the total construction cost of the building, including the costs of concrete, reinforcement bars, labor, and formwork, while still fulfilling the constraints of the Egyptian code of practice (ECP-18). The applicability of the presented algorithm was investigated in a design example, where the tuning of the evolutionary algorithm control parameters was sought, and the best parameters were investigated. Two case studies were employed to study the impacts of changing the column spacing and concrete grades on the optimal cost for each floor system. The results showed that low concrete grades, (i.e., characteristic strength up to 40 MPa) and column spacings up to 5 m are preferred in terms of direct construction costs for low-rise RC residential buildings.

As in many other building types, space efficiency in mid-rise timber apartment buildings is one of the critical design parameters to make a project feasible. Space efficiency depends on varying selection criteria related to construction materials, construction methods, and proper planning. To date, no study provides a comprehensive understanding of space efficiency in mid-rise timber apartment buildings. This paper examined data from 55 Finnish mid-rise timber apartment buildings built between 2018 and 2022 under the Finnish Land Use and Building Act to increase the understanding of which factors and design parameters influence the space efficiency of mid-rise timber apartment buildings. The main findings of this study indicated that: (1) among the case studies, the space efficiency ranged from 77.8% to 87.9%, and the average was 83%; (2) the mean values of the ratios of structural wall area to gross floor area, vertical circulation area to gross floor area, and technical spaces (including shafts) to gross floor area were found to be 12.9%, 2.6%, and 1.5%, respectively; (3) construction methods or shear wall materials make no significant difference in terms of space efficiency, and there is no scientific correlation between the number of stories and space efficiency; (4) the best average space efficiency was achieved with central core type, followed by peripheral core arrangement. This research will contribute to design guidelines for clients, developers, architects, and other construction professionals of mid-rise timber apartment building projects.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology has been widely used in the construction industry in recent years. However, to date, it still cannot sufficiently meet the requirements of construction practitioners in terms of the layout design of floor tiles. Recently, the BIM-based Parametric Design (PD) platform has presented considerable potential in automatically generating and optimizing floor tile layout design. In this paper, we propose a workflow to generate and optimize the layout design of floor tiles globally. To develop the workflow, we first formalize the design algorithm of floor tiles according to the trade know-how cutting and planning rules. Then, we combine the design algorithm with an evolutionary algorithm (EA) to generate and optimize the layout design for floor tiles automatically while minimizing material wastage. A prototype system is established in the ArchiCAD (BIM) and Grasshopper (PD platform) software. An apartment room tiling layout is used to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Compared with the existing design methods, the proposed approach (1) reduces the material waste rate by 14.58% and 11.46%; and (2) improves the calculation efficiency and reduces the required computation time by 17.3 s to 50.0 s. Moreover, this research improves the existing design algorithm, enabling the BIM- and PD-based approaches to be used reliably in optimizing floor tile planning with arc-shaped boundaries. The outcomes are summarized in order to provide valuable insights in terms of floor tile waste reduction for further sustainable construction practice.

The structural design process is iterative and involves many design parameters. Thus, this paper presents a controlled framework for selecting the adequate structural floor system for reinforced concrete buildings and efficiently utilizing the corresponding construction materials. Optimization was performed using an evolutionary algorithm to minimize the total construction cost, considering the costs of concrete, steel reinforcement, formwork, and labor. In the problem formulation, the characteristic compressive strength of concrete was treated as a design variable because it affects the mechanical performance of concrete. The design variables included the column spacings, concrete dimensions, and steel reinforcement of different structural components. The constraints reflected the Egyptian code of practice provisions. Because the choice of the structural floor system affects the design details, three systems were considered: solid slabs, flat slabs with drop panels, and flat slabs without drop panels. Two benchmark examples were presented, and the optimal design results of the structural floor systems were compared. The solid slab system had the lowest construction cost among the three structural floor systems. Comparative diagrams were developed to investigate the distribution of construction costs of each floor system. The results revealed that an adequate choice of design variables could save up to 17% of the building’s total construction cost.

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into residential architectural design faces challenges due to fragmented workflows and the lack of localized datasets. This study proposes the CorbuAI framework, hypothesizing that a multimodal AI system integrating Pix2pix-GAN and Stable Diffusion (SD) can streamline the transition from floor plan generation to elevation and interior design within a specific regional context. We developed a custom dataset featuring 2335 manually refined Chinese residential floor plans and 1570 elevation images. The methodology employs a specialized U-Net V2.0 generator for functional layout synthesis and an SD-based model for stylistic transfer and elevation rendering. Evaluation was conducted through both subjective professional scoring and objective metrics, including the Perceptual Hash Algorithm (pHash). Results demonstrate that CorbuAI achieves high accuracy in spatial allocation (scoring 0.88/1.0) and high structural consistency in elevation generation (mean pHash similarity of 0.82). The framework significantly reduces design iteration time while maintaining professional aesthetic standards. This research provides a scalable AI-driven methodology for automated residential design, bridging the gap between schematic layouts and visual representation in the Chinese architectural context.

As the population continues to grow in China’s urban settings, the building sector contributes to increasing levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concrete and steel are the two most common construction materials used in China and account for 60% of the carbon emissions among all building components. Mass timber is recognized as an alternative building material to concrete and steel, characterized by better environmental performance and unique structural features. Nonetheless, research associated with mass timber buildings is still lacking in China. Quantifying the emission mitigation potentials of using mass timber in new buildings can help accelerate associated policy development and provide valuable references for developing more sustainable constructions in China. This study used a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to compare the environmental impacts of a baseline concrete building and a functionally equivalent timber building that uses cross-laminated timber as the primary material. A cradle-to-gate LCA model was developed based on onsite interviews and surveys collected in China, existing publications, and geography-specific life cycle inventory data. The results show that the timber building achieved a 25% reduction in global warming potential compared to its concrete counterpart. The environmental performance of timber buildings can be further improved through local sourcing, enhanced logistics, and manufacturing optimizations.