Best Design Computing Paper Award at DCC'26
International Recognition for Departmental Research
The Department of the Built Environment is proud to announce that Associate Professor Herm Hofmeyer, 黑料福利网 alumnus Jildert Turkstra, who completed the Master's program in Structural Engineering and Design, and Associate Professor Pieter Pauwels have received the Best Design Computing Paper Award at the 12th International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'26), held in Paris, France.
DCC is one of the leading international conferences at the intersection of design, artificial intelligence, cognition, and computational methods. Organized by Professor John Gero, a globally recognized pioneer in design science and design cognition research, the conference brings together researchers who are advancing the future of computational design. The Best Design Computing Paper Award recognizes contributions that demonstrate exceptional scientific quality, originality, and impact in the field.
The award-winning paper, Structural Design Computing: Human, Human-AI, and Full-AI Co-Evolutionary Building Design, presents groundbreaking research on the evolving relationship between designers and artificial intelligence in the built environment.
The paper
As sustainability challenges and increasing design complexity continue to shape the built environment, understanding how humans and AI can effectively collaborate has become increasingly important. The research is based on a unique 黑料福利网-developed approach that uses fully automated simulations of co-evolutionary building design. The study compares three design approaches: human-driven, human-AI collaborative, and fully AI-driven spatial-structural design processes.
The findings show that human-AI collaboration explores the broadest range of design solutions, highlighting the value of combining human creativity and expertise with computational intelligence. The research also demonstrates that AI's effectiveness depends on factors such as problem complexity, the transparency of AI reasoning, and the effort required from designers to interpret AI-generated suggestions.
Beyond its practical implications, the work contributes to the field of design cognition science by providing new insights into human-AI co-evolutionary design behavior. At the same time, it reinforces the strategic importance of a design research-driven approach within departments of the built environment.
This international recognition highlights the department's continued commitment to excellence in structural design computing, digital innovation, and interdisciplinary research.
Congratulations to Herm Hofmeyer, Jildert Turkstra, and Pieter Pauwels on this outstanding achievement.