Mass-Customization in the Design of 4,000 Bus Stops

In Hawaii, "TheBus" has been a main transportation system since 1971. Considering the high cost of living in Hawaii and the absence of a rail system, the use of "TheBus" has been an instrumental vein of the city life in Honolulu with rhythmical pauses at about 4,000 bus stops in Honolulu. However, existing undifferentiated bus stops are developed from a cost effective mass production system so that they have been problematic for satisfying specific needs from various site conditions. In this research, an integrated computational method of mass-customization for designing 4,000 bus stops is introduced. According to various site conditions, the design of each bus stop is customized. Unlike the mass produced bus stops commonly seen in cities today, the proposed computational method in this paper produces bus stop design outcomes that fit into the physical characteristics of the location in which they are installed. Mass-customization allows for the creation and production of unique or similar buildings and building components, differentiated through digitally controlled variation (Kolarevic, 2003). The employment of a computational mass customization in architectural design extends the boundary of design solutions to the satisfaction of multi-objective requirements and unlimited freedom to search alternative solutions (Duarte, 2001, Caldas, 2006). The computational method developed in this paper consists of 1) definition of a prototype, 2) parametric variation, 3) manual deformation, and 4) simulation based deformation. The definition of a prototype is the development of a basic design to be transformed for satisfying various conditions given from a site. In this paper, the bus stop prototype is developed from the analysis of more than 300 bus stops and the categorization of the existing bus stops according to their physical conditions, contextual conditions, climatic conditions, and existing amenities. Based upon the outcome of the analysis, the design variables of a bus stop prototype are defined. Those design variables then guide the basic physical parameters for changing the physical configuration of the prototype according to a given site. From this, many possible design outcomes are generated as instances for further developments. The process of manual deformation is where the designer employs its intuition to develop the selected parametric variation. The designer is compelled to think about the possible implication derived from formal variation. This optional process allows every design decision to have a creative solution from an individual designer with an incidental quality in aesthetics, but substantiated functional quality. Finally the deformation of the selection is guided and controlled by the influence of sun direction/ exposure to the selection. The simulation based deformation starts with the movement of the sun as the trigger for generating the variations of the bus stop prototype. The implementation of the computational method was made within the combination of MEL (Maya Enbedded Language), autodesk MAYA and Ecotect environment.