Combining their advanced AI-driven platforms, the partnership aims to cut design tasks from weeks to seconds
Testfit.io, the generative building configuration developer, has announced a technology partnership with the structural engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti to accelerate data sharing between their applications.
The firms have developed an API connecting TestFit’s design and visualisation platform with Thornton Tomasetti’s Asterisk structural optioneering tool. Tomasetti’s Asterisk is developed by the firm’s CORE studio, Tomasetti Asterisk uses computational geometry and artificial intelligence based on Tomasetti’s extensive structural engineering experience.
The new integration enables users to solve a variety of design challenges. For example, an architect or developer contemplating the design of a parking garage might want to optimise the sizing of columns to maximise the amount of parking stalls in that garage.
Laying out the design in TestFit, the user can get an instant answer via the knowledge embedded in Tomasetti Asterisk’s Structural AI. The user can then see how the columns’ width and shape would change as variables are modified – a critical task that previously would have required a coordination meeting, adding costs and delays to the project.
The column-width AI for parking structures is available now, with many more collaborations on the horizon. “In 2020, we developed the first IBC compliant core and shell generator for office buildings,” said TestFit CEO Clifton Harness. “Working with the Thornton Tomasetti team in 2021, we hope to bring structural optimisation to our office offering, as well as to coordinate structural systems in our industry-leading multifamily building configurators.”
Thornton Tomasetti’s Rob Otani, senior principal and chief technology officer (CTO) in charge of the firm’s CORE studio, said. “Using the API to link the knowledge represented by TestFit and Tomasetti Asterisk results in processes that are a hundred times faster than today’s standard. This is just a hint of what we believe is to come with this partnership, resulting in far more efficient, reliable and proven solutions to architectural challenges – all while driving down costs by saving time and effort.”
TestFit has expanded its multifamily housing customer footprint in architectural, real estate developer and general contractor markets with its solution for rapid design in feasibility studies without the need for generative design programming knowledge.
Thornton Tomasetti, founded in 1949, has been associated with architectural projects of note worldwide, including skyscrapers such as The Jeddah Tower and Comcast Tower; stadiums such as AT&T Park, U.S. Bank Stadium and Yankee Stadium; and renewal projects including the Chrysler Building and United States Capitol dome.
“We’re thrilled to have this new partnership with Thornton Tomasetti not only because of how it will help us quickly address structural engineering issues, but because it reinforces our conviction that our approach to generative design is the wave of the future,” said Harness.
