KarambaA Toolkit for Parametric Structural Design

Clemens Preisinger, Dipl.-Ing., Dr., University of Applied Arts Vienna, Structural Design, Vienna, Austria;
Moritz Heimrath, Mag. Arch., Bollinger Grohmann Schneider ZT GmbH, Research and Development, Vienna, Austria.
Contact: info@karamba3d.com
DOI: 10.2749/101686614X13830790993483

Abstract
An increasing number of architectural design practices harness the power of
parametric design tools. The aim of these tools is to facilitate and control complex building geometries. Parametric design programs such as Grasshopper
(GH) for Rhino or Generative Components popularized this approach by providing easy-to-use visual programming environments that integrate with computer-aided design (CAD) packages. A logical next step consists in connecting
parametric designs to applications that evaluate non-geometric aspects such as
building physics or structural performance. This brings about new opportunities
of collaboration between architects and engineers in the early stages of building design. The ease of testing alternatives by tweaking a set of parameters also
opens the door for the application of generic optimization algorithms. Karamba is
a finite element program geared towards interactive use in the parametric design
environment GH. Being a GH plug-in, it seamlessly integrates with the diverse
habitat of other third party programs available for GH. These range from building physics applications to genetic optimization engines. In the authors company,
Karamba is used in early-stage design, form-finding, and structural optimization.
White Noise, a mobile exhibition pavilion for the Salzburg Biennale, serves
as a case study that shows how Karamba can be used to optimize the structural
performance of intricate building geometries.
Keywords: parametric design environment; structural; interactive; finite
elements; optimization; integrated planning process.

Introduction
Digital tools have transformed the
process of architectural and structural design tremendously since
they superseded the drawing board
about 20 years ago. One feature that
remained constant though, is the fact
that designs tend to change significantly from conception to completion.
Therefore, increased flexibility constitutes the key feature that motivates
the adoption of new design technologies: Computer-aided design (CAD)
programs became popular because
they allowed to change a digital drawing with a few clicks of a mouse instead
of having to use a razor blade on a
large sheet of paper.
Later on, flexibility was further
enhanced by adding context information to the constituents of a digital
Peer-reviewed by international experts and accepted for publication
by SEI Editorial Board
Paper received: July 15, 2013
Paper accepted: November 18, 2013

drawing. One early approach consisted

in recording the history of commands
that lead to a given geometry. The
command history implicitly stores the
dependencies between the objects of
a drawing. It can be used to update
elements (e.g. lines) when their parent entities from which they derive
(e.g. points) change. This offers flexibility with respect to the input parameters (e.g. point coordinates): A series
of commands can be automatically
re-executed in a preset order to create an altered version of the original
geometry.
The next step in enhancing flexibility
of geometry creation consisted in making the history explicit and letting the
user control the order of commands.
Current parametric design environments such as Generative Components
(GC)1 or Grasshopper (GH)2 implement that idea. They provide the
user with a visual environment where
commands can be linked together to
form a directed acyclic graph (Fig. 1):
Data flows through the graph edges
(visualized as pipes) from left to right
and gets processed at the vertices that

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symbolize operations. Figure 1 shows

a simple case where a GH definition
is used to sum up four user-defined
numbers. Algorithms formulated in
such a way lack features of traditional
programming languages such as loops.
This makes them easier to learn and
enables users to express geometric
production rules without the need of
having to think in terms of a programming language. When necessity arises
though, GH definitions can be supplemented by custom scripts (devised
in C# or Visual Basic) that provide a
higher level of expressiveness.

Parametric Structural Design

Currently, parametric design strategies focus on the generation of geometriesprimarily in an architectural
context. They allow the user to test a
large number of different but related
geometries without much effort. This is
most important in early design stages
where a complex network of contradicting architectural objectives needs
to be considered for finding the best
solution.
Presently, applications of parametric tools in structural design remain
scarce. This is rooted in the traditional
approach to building projects where
architects hand over a frozen geometry for further analysis to structural
engineers. Typical finite element (FE)
programs are geared toward thorough analysis of a given structure that
does not change significantly in the
course of design. The current trend of
increased complexity of architectural
designs entails the need to incorporate
structural assessment early on. The
ideal solution would be an automated
feedback loop between architectural
design and structural response in real
time: An architect changes the parameters of his or her design and receives
immediate response regarding the
impact on structural performance.
In later project stages, flexibility and
tolerance toward changes are no less
beneficial as in practice architectural
designs tend to change even after
being frozen.
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and offer the same look and feel as

native components.
A
B

A+B

1
3
R

A
B

A+B

2
R

10

A
B

A+B

3
R

4
Fig. 1: Grasshopper definitions form directed acyclic graphs: Data flows from left to right
through pipes; graph vertices represent operations such as addition of two numbers

Many current FE packages allow

communication with other programs
via an application programming interface (API). They can thus be remote
controlled from custom written programs. This possibility has been used
in the past by researchers who linked
parametric design environments
and off-the-shelf FE programs.3,4
Traditional FE-solvers come as monolithic stand-alone applications, which
are not optimized for integrated
use. Therefore, it takes considerable
time to pass structural data to such
programs, to analyze it and retrieve
results. In order to appear truly interactive, quick response is however of
utmost importance. This is the reason why a different approach has

been chosen for the software design

of the parametric FE toolkit named
Karamba.5

Implementation
of a Parametric Structural
Design Toolkit
For the implementation of the parametric design toolkit Karamba, the
visual computing environment GH was
chosen. GH comes as a free plug-in for
the three-dimensional (3D) modeler
Rhinoceros and features a thriving
online community. GHs base functionality can be extended via plug-ins
programs written in one of the dot net
languages. These plug-ins seamlessly
integrate into the user interface of GH

Create

Convert

Assemble

The structural design toolkit Karamba

takes advantage of this feature of GH
and enlarges the range of GH entities
with objects symbolizing beams, shells,
materials, cross sections, supports,
loads or whole structural models. The
software design of Karamba adheres
to the principle of object orientation.
This offers the advantage that there is
a one-to-one correspondence between
objects visible in the GH user interface
and the internal objects used for calculation in Karamba. As a consequence,
the user is given fine-grained control
over all properties of the structural
model including the retrieval of results.
Structural models in Karamba behave
like normal GH objects: They can be
fed into components for static analysis
or results retrieval, copied or decomposed into their constituents. Karamba
is a self-contained FE solverit lives
inside GH. Therefore, calculation data
need not be passed between different
applications, which brings about a considerable reduction of reaction time
as compared with using external FE
engines.

Setup of a Parametric
Structural Model
Figure 2 shows the main parts of a
model definition with Karamba: The
gray rectangles symbolize operations
Analyze

View

Define

Fig. 2: Definition of a structural model with Karamba

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that manipulate data that flows from

left to right. The focus of GH lies in
processing geometric entities and thus
offers objects that represent points,
lines, and meshes. They form the basis
for building a structural model (see
Fig. 2 create).
To be useful in a structural context
the geometric entities need to be
converted into structural elements.
Currently Karamba provides beams,
trusses, and shells. The component
LineToBeam from the Karamba
tools selection takes lines as input and
performs preliminary checks on them:
optionally removes duplicate lines (i.e.
lines that lie on top of each other)
and determines their connectivity.
Inaccurate geometry (e.g. lines whose
endpoints do not exactly meet) can be
dealt with by defining tolerances for
snapping together neighboring points.
The output of the LineToBeam component consists of structural elements
with default cross section and material
properties. They can be given names
for later reference, for example, when
applying non-default materials or cross
sections later on.
Other structural constituents such
as supports, loads, and cross sections
get defined in a similar fashion (see
Fig. 2 define). The combined structural information supplied by the
user forms a model object, which can
be subjected to structural calculation. Analysis options include static
deflections, natural vibrations or cross
section optimization among others
according to EC3.
In GH, data travels from left to right.
This means that models can be analyzed multiple times under different
aspects. The result data attach to the
model and thus move together with it.
The properties of a structural model
can be viewed at arbitrary states (see
Fig. 2 view). Karamba uses the
Rhino viewport to visualize model
information. The available viewing
options resemble those of standard
FE programs: display of basic model
data in order to check model integrity
or correctness of element properties,
displaced model shapes, support reactions, element stresses and the like.
An important feature of Karamba
models is that they can be decomposed
into their components (e.g. FEs, supports, loads) and reassembled to form
different configurations. This allows
incorporating the structural behavior
(e.g. displacements) of a previously
analyzed model into user-defined

Fig. 3: Rendering of the temporary pavilion White Noise from the architectural
competition entry

form-finding processes or optimization

strategies.

Application to Real-World
Structures
In the structural engineering office,
Karamba can be used at all stages of
project development: from structural
assessment of architectural competition entries to design development and
generation of construction documents.
The project White Noise will be used
to describe how Karamba fits into the
structural design process.
Figure 3 shows a rendering of the
structure from the architectural competition entry. The task was to design
a temporary pavilion for the Salzburg
Biennalean art festival in the city of
Salzburg that takes place every 2 years.
The structure should be easy to assemble, disassemble and transport on road.
In plan view the pavilion measures
12 m 20 m.
In order to fulfill the weight constraint,
aluminum was chosen as the main construction material. The structure had to
be divided into several modules that fit
into conventional low-loading trucks
and could later be joined on-site using
prestressed bolt connections.
It proved difficult to generate a viable
load-bearing structure from the geometric principles outlined in the initial competition entry. Figure 4 takes a
closer look at one of the five main parts
of the pavilion. Aluminum rods of uniform length of 2 m were positioned on
parallel layers that have a mutual distance of 0,2 m. A non-uniform rational
B-Splines (NURBS) surface defined
the interior of the pavilion wherein the

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finished structure, a prestressed membrane, shields visitors from wind and

rain. This surface may not be crossed
by structural members and thus determined their starting points. In order to
arrive at a structure of uniform visual
density, the inner starting points of rods
were positioned at uniform mutual
distance with a phase shift between
neighboring layers (Fig. 4). The inclination of the aluminum rods should
differ within a certain range, following
global rules for aggregation and allowing for an individual behavior. The aim
was to keep the visitors focus switching between single members and the
integrated whole. The aluminum rods
had to adhere to the condition that no
two members of the same layer overlap. This constraint came from the side
of architectural design. Figure 4 shows
how the members of neighboring layers (colored blue and red) are joined
to each other: where two members
cross they get connected via circular
studs (symbolized in the drawing as
black circles). The structural performance of the pavilion thus depended
heavily on the relative position of the
aluminum rods.
Based on the given geometry of the
inner hull and the constraints formulated above, a parametric model
was set up in GH. Twenty parameters
controlled the orientation of the aluminum rods. The positions of the connecting circular studs between them
were determined using GHs geometric
analysis capabilities.
For each of the five main parts, a static
model was created using Karamba.
Although different in shape, one basic
setup for geometry and structural
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several solvers freely available that can

handle such problems efficiently. For
the job at hand, a genetic algorithm
solver called Galapagos7 was used.
Genetic algorithm procedures8 work
along the principles of natural selection. They breed solutions from an initial, randomly generated population of
parameter sets. By evaluating a large
number of solutions with respect to
a fitness function, genetic algorithms
gradually converge to reasonably
good solutions even for very difficult
problems.
In the case of the White Noise pavilion,
three criteria were considered for driving the optimization process:
1. Largest displacement dmax in the
structure under exterior loadsto be
minimized to ensure serviceability.
2. Number of connections ncon
between the aluminum rodsto be
minimized in order to lower production effort and cost.
3. A global variation value vvar, which
measured the difference of inclination of neighboring membersto be
maximized for esthetic reasons.

Fig. 4: The load carrying structure consists of parallel layers of differently inclined
aluminum rods that connect to each other via circular studs

In order to feed the genetic algorithm

solver with a single fitness function,
the three criteria were combined using
the following heuristic formula:
Fitness = vvar/(dmaxncon)
The numbers of fitness evaluations for
different sets of input parameters were
in the range of several ten thousands.
One optimization run took roughly 4 h
on a quad-core workstation.
Figure 6 shows the pavilion White Noise
after completion on the Mozart Platz in
Salzburg. A comparison with the initial
competition rendering in Fig. 3 proves
that the structure could be realized
according to the architects design intent.

Fig. 5: Calculated deflections at the beginning of the structural optimization procedure

model proofed sufficient for all five

main parts. As the geometry of the
inner hull constitutes just one more
input parameter, it simply had to be
switched from part to part with the rest
of the parametric definition remaining
unchanged.
Figure 5 shows an axis model of
the initial geometry (red) and the
deformed structure (yellow) with magnified deflections. The green arrows
at the base of the structure represent
supports against nodal translations.
Wind in horizontal direction proved
to be the governing load case in most
situations, but also the loads from the
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prestressed membrane contributed

significantly to the stress in the elements and connections.
For each of the partial models, the 20
free parameters had to be determined
in such a way that neither usability
was impaired by large deflections nor
stresses in the elements and connections exceeded the allowable limit.
There exists no continuously differentiable relationship between the inclination of the aluminum rods and overall
structural performance because the
number of connections changes in a
stepwise fashion. Owing to the open
platform philosophy of GH, there are

Conclusions
Parametric visual design environments
provide a powerful, flexible tool for
defining and handling complex geometries. They enable users to express
their general idea about structural
shapes in an algorithmic way without
the need to resort to formal programming languages. Owing to their dependence on parameters, algorithmically
defined geometries can be changed
easily: either interactively in order
to study the architectural qualities of
alternatives or automatically in combination with optimization engines. The
parametric structural design toolkit

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References
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Components, A parametric and associative
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[2] McNeel R. Grasshopper. website http://grasshopper3d.com, 2013.
[3] Coenders J. Approximating complex shapes
with intelligent structures: embedded design intelligence in systems for the early phases of design.
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[4] Odysseas G. Interactive structural analysis &
form finding. IABSE-IASS Symposium 2011
Taller, Longer, Lighter, 2011.
[5] Preisinger C. Karamba parametric structural modeling, user manual for version 1.0.3.
http://karamba3d.com, 2013.

Fig. 6: The temporary pavilion White Noise on the Mozart Platz in Salzburg (Photo:
F. Hafele)

Karamba builds upon GH, which is

a parametric design environment for
the 3D modeler Rhinoceros. Karamba
can be used to give instant feedback
about the structural performance of
parametric geometries. The structural

design and optimization of the temporary pavilion White Noise shows

how Karamba was used to generate an
efficient load-bearing structure while
adhering to the original architectural
design intent.

[6] Rutzinger S, Schinegger K, Hofmann A,

Heimrath M. Adaptive design of a music pavilion. Adaptive Architecture Converence 35
March, 2011.
[7] Rutten D. Galapagos: on the logic and limitations of generic solvers. Architectural Design
Special issue: Computation Works: The Building
of Algorithmic Thought 2013; 83(2): 132135.
[8] Goldberg DE. Genetic Algorithms in Search,
Optimization and Machine Learning, AddisonWesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc. Boston,
MA, USA 1998.

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