Applications of Finite Element Simulation and Mixed Reality in Architecture and Built Environment

Licentiate thesis, 2019

This thesis presents applications in architecture and built environment that are based on the finite element method and mixed reality. The work consists of two main components: two projects presented in three papers. The first project (presented in Paper I) concerns an application in urban design, thus built environment on a larger scale. In this project, a model for efficiently evaluating configurations of buildings is presented along with numerical results. The key ingredient for making the model efficient is the use of cut finite element methods on overlapping meshes. Although the project in its current state does not involve mixed reality, there is a natural extension to it by considering virtual or mixed reality user interfaces. The second project (presented in Paper II and Paper III) is about a mixed reality software application (app) with potential use in HVAC-simulations (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), thus built environment on a smaller scale. The app allows a user to interactively define and solve problems governed by differential equations in mixed reality, where the real world surroundings are used as input data and the differential equations are solved with the finite element method.