The authors have been involved in the use of generative techniques for building envelope design since 1968 and the use of genetic algorithms since 1990. Recent work has focused on incorporating optimization functions into form generating processes in order for new forms responding to varied design environments to be created and determined. This paper will summarise the authors’ previous work in this field and explain the theory behind this approach, and illustrate recent developments. While the initial implementation of a new building envelope design system is reported in more details in a related paper at this conference, this paper outlines its main features and points out the direction at which it is to be fully developed and further improved.

In this paper, we give some new results on the existence and properties of solutions of singular elliptic boundary value problems of second order. We discuss the difference of weak solutions and classical solutions.

CLARANS is an efficient and effective clustering method especially in spatial data mining. It is applicable to locate objects with polygon shape. Inspired by its randomized searching nature, and based on the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm together with the widely used dynamic niche technology, this paper presents a new variation of CLARANS combined with the dynamic niche sharing technique with PSO algorithm. We proposed a cooperative particle swarm optimization CLARANS with cooperative multi-population.

Based on the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm together with the widely used dynamic niche technology, this paper presents a new variation combined with the dynamic niche sharing technique on the basis of traditional PSO algorithm. We proposed a cooperative particle swarm optimization model with cooperative multi-population. Applications are given on creative conceptual architectural design.