Article:

The continuous housing shortage demands efficient ways of design andconstruction. In the context of rising construction standards and shrinkingmanpower, one of the possible answers to the problem is prefabrication orientedtowards do-it-yourself (DIY) construction methods, which could contribute to thelow and middle income housing supply in the market. The article covers theprocess of developing an experimental tool for aiding single-family housingdesign with the use of small-element solid timber prefabrication, suitable for DIYassembly. The presented tool uses the potential of BIM technology adapting atraditionally-designed house to the needs of prefabrication and optimizing it interms of waste generated in the assembly process. The presented experiment wasrealized in the Autodesk Revit environment and incorporates custom generativescripts developed in Dynamo-for-Revit. The prototype analyzed an input modeland converted it into a prefabricated alternative based on the user- andtechnology-specified boundary conditions. The prototype was tested on theexample design of a two-story single-family house. The results compare theautomated optimized model conversion with manual adaptation approach. Theimplemented algorithm allowed for reducing the construction waste by more than50%.