Numerical optimisation techniques applied to evacuation analysis

A common problem faced by fire safety engineers in the field of evacuation analysis concerns the optimal design of an arbitrarily complex structure in order to minimise evacuation times. How does the engineer determine the best solution? In this study we introduce the concept of numerical optimisation techniques to address this problem. The study makes user of the buildingEXODUS evacuation model coupled with classical optimisation theory including Design of Experiments (DoE) and Response Surface Models (RSM). We demonstrate the technique using a relatively simple problem of determining the optimal location for a single exit in a square room.

Piranesi in Ghent

Piranesi in Ghent is an exhibition, a catalogue and a symposium. It is also a telling story in the recent scholarship and recurring ‘fashionable’ re-discoveries of Piranesi’s work. It is a funny story, a serious cultural enterprise that begins, like all good love stories, by chance. But there’s more here: scholarly passion, intellectual curiosity, design and experimentations: as well as reproductions, plates and debates, and a lot of challenging hypotheses and development possibilities. This is indeed a very Piranesian story and, as in Piranesi’s work, here the less visibly obvious is worthy of the greatest attention, because it reveals more, much more indeed, than what appears at first.