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1. 8
Just three decades after a century paper age seemed
to come to an end, the digital age is already moving
towards the third phase, characterized by parametric
design and interoperability platforms. To create an
over-view of its status, Bouwen met Staal is hosting the
webinar series Digital innovation. This article highlights
the trends found within the webinars.
Continuously striving to more
efficiency
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC)
industry is constantly evolving. It is hard to imagine that
just three decades ago all design drawings were made
by hand. These drawings were labor intensive and were
prone to have errors.
To stimulate efficiency computer aided design (CAD)
software packages were developed. The implemen-
tation of CAD-software completely changed how our
workspaces looked like. Drawing boards were replaced
by computers and these 2D drawing were made with
mouse clicks and drawing pads. A new digital era
emerged. Nowadays, 2D drawings are generally not
created separately anymore, instead they are extracted
from a full 3D model containing all project information.
Often this is referred to as Building Information Model-
ling (BIM). Unfortunately, these models are static and
therefore not able to quickly adapt to design changes
or new demands.
The need for dynamic models characterizes the era,
where we are currently in the middle of. Instead of
building a static digital model, we are creating a logic
to dynamically generate the digital model. The crea-
tion of a dynamic model always starts with defining
what should be variable and what should stay static.
Depending on these variables, called parameters, the
logic that produces the desired outcome is defined. A
dynamic model, where the output de-pends on the input
parameters, is a parametric model.
But what is the current level of implementation of these
innovative digital techniques? To answer this question
Bouwen met Staal started the webinar serie Digital
innovation, with guest speakers working in the Dutch
Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry.
The speaker shows in a 30-minute presentation how
new digital techniques contribute to a better project
delivery [1].
1st Digital Age 2nd Digital Age 3rd Digital Age
Computer aided
design (CAD)
Building information
modelling (BIM)
Parametric design
and Interoperability
Platforms
Drawing
2D
Single disciplanary
Stand alone
Design skill
Modeling
3D/4D (incl time)
Multi-disciplinary
Network, Internet,
Intranet
Design Skills
Programming
Dynamic
Multi-disciplinary
Interoperability
Design and program-
ming skills
INNOVATIVE DIGITAL DESIGN
THE 3RD DIGITAL AGE
IN DESIGN
Author: ir Rayaan Ajouz | Photo: Parametric design, Bouwen met Staal

2. 9
The creators of parametric models
Many speakers with different backgrounds have pre-
sented during the webinar series. The bigger part of the
presenters are creators and users of parametric mo-
dels, they work as struc-tural engineers or as architects.
Using a parametric model, instead of a more traditional
approach, allows them to both model complex geom-
etry and quickly adapt to changing demands. A design
process is an organic process consisting of multiple
design iterations, where in the beginning of a project
little infor-mation is known. In design projects, there is
a high likelihood of needing to remodel once demands
have changed and modifications are needed. A pa-
rametric model can help prevent needing to remodel
everything, because it will regenerate the entire model
when parameters are changed.
When a design projects starts, there are certain ele-
ments that are highly likely to change multiple times
during the design process. This was also the case for
Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam, where the interior of
the theatre is surround with complex double curved
walls to reduce the sound reflections. For executability,
the double curved geometry is discretized with multi-
ple planar surfaces, where every surface represents a
separate panel.
The maximum dimen-sions of these panels where pa-
rametrized to adapt quickly to new insights, gained by
performing optimization studies with the model itself.
The dimensions of the panels were optimized to im-
prove acoustic performance and buildability. Moreover,
the parametric model had a high level of detail, such
that in every iteration all productions drawing needed to
fabricate the panels where automatically updated.
A parametric model can also help to automate repeti-
tive tasks. Tasks which would formerly be labor intensi-
ve can automatically be executed, based on predefined
rules in the parametric model. For example, the steel
dome structure of Capital C consists out of many steel
connections which are topologically similar but are
geometrically different. In this project, the work-shop
drawings are automatically generated, reducing manual
labor, and making it possible to meet strict tolerances
in the production process, that the glass façade panels
required.
The rise of interoperability
platforms
Another striking trend, besides the increasing imple-
mentation of parametric scripts, is the rise of inter-
operability platforms. In a parametric model, multiple
software packages are often linked. Every link should
be created and maintained.
Theater Zuidplein, Rotterdam with its parametric model on the right | Photo: Studio RAP
FIG. 2
Presenters webinar series categorized
FIG. 1
Diamond exchange, Capital C Amsterdam | Photo:
Octatube
FIG. 3

3. 10
Making a separate link for every software package
results in having a high number of these links, resulting
in a high amount of work needed for maintenance.
Moreover, parallel data streams may occur which could
poten-tially lead to data loss. To improve project work-
flows, interoperability platforms are becoming more
present. The platform contains a centralized definition
to store all information, which links to every software
package separately, eliminating the need to maintain
many links and creating one single source of truth.
The 3rd Digital Age is data-driven and enhances the
cooperation of different competences in the design
team. Interoperability encourages faster and more ac-
curate collection and interpre-tation of data. This leads
to increased efficiency because it eliminates repetition
and helps controlling consecutive steps in the design
process. This is freeing up resources, both human and
material, and facilitates designers to communicate and
organize the process better. There is a wide variety of
interoperability platforms available in the market.
These are either open-source or serviced. The serviced
options can guide you in creating your parametric work-
flow and can help you to publish the model as a cl-
oud-based application/online configurator. Interoperabi-
lity platforms enable us to create enormous parametric
ecosystems, where various companies and disciplines
can add their logic. The ecosystem will generate the
multidisciplinary final design. Designing will no longer
be done by hand, but instead designing will consist of
creating the logic needed to generate the design.
Bouwen met Staal’s contribution
to the 3rd Digital Age
Parametric design is becoming a more prevalent disci-
pline. Therefore, besides this webinar series, Bouwen
met Staal is making its contribution to stimulate the
use of parametric design workflows within the industry.
For example, during Staalbouwdag 2019 Bouwen met
Staal organized a Hackathon where architects, struc-
tural engineers and detail engineers from differ-ent
companies worked together in multidisciplinary teams
to design a hockey stadium within 6 hours. For the last
two years, we did research on how steel connections
can be included in parametric models and how cost op-
timization can be made [2]. Lastly, since 2020 Bouwen
met Staal organizes 5-day courses, where participants
learn the fundamentals of parametric design.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating a parametric model requires a
higher time investment in the beginning of the design
process but it has several advantages. Being able to
quickly adapt to changes, to model complex geom-
etries and to automate repetitive tasks can be deter-
minative to choose for a parametric approach in the
design process. With Interoperatibility platform emer-
ging, the current level of implementation of parametric
design workflows will inevitably only grow.
Our task, as engineers and architects, is to continue
learning how to model parametrically so that we can
fully utilize its potential.
We as Bouwen met Staal are excited about the benefits
that this 3rd Digital Age will bring to the industry and we
are looking forward to the 4th Digital Age, where machi-
ne learning and artificial intelligence will potentially take
over parts of our work.
Interested in watching the webinars? Past webinars
can be viewed free of charge on the YouTube channel
of Bouwen met Staal: https://www.youtube.com/Bou-
wenmetStaal1
[1] WEBINAR REEKS DIGITALE INNOVATIE [ONLINE] HT-
TPS://WWW.BOUWENMETSTAAL.NL/EVENEMENTEN/
WEBINAR-REEKS-DIGITALE-INNOVATIE/
[2] HACKATHON@STAALBOUWDAG [ONLINE] HTTPS://WWW.
BOUWENMETSTAAL.NL/EVENEMENTEN/HACKATHON-
STAALBOUWDAG/
[3] SMARTCONNECTION [ONLINE] HTTPS://WWW.BOUWEN-
METSTAAL.NL/THEMAS/PARAMETRISCH-ONTWERPEN/
SMARTCONNECTION/
[4] CURSUS PARAMETRISCH ONTWERPEN VOOR STAALCON-
STRUCTIES [ONLINE] HTTPS://WWW.BOUWENMETSTAAL.
NL/THEMAS/PARAMETRISCH-ONTWERPEN/COURSE-PA-
RAMETRIC-DESIGN-OF-STEEL-STRUCTURES/
SOURCES
Eliminating the number of links in an interoperability
platform | Photo: bhom.xyz
FIG. 4