On September 10th, Research Associate Markus Renner presented the paper titled “A compact geometry schema for structural reasoning on prefabricated concrete building systems” at the ECPPM 2026 conference.
The paper is co-authored by Diellza Elshani, Hans Jakob Wagner, Sebastian Künzel, Renan Prandini, Tanja Bien, Mathias Niepert, Jan Knippers, Daniel Weiskopf, Achim Menges, and Thomas Wortmann and addresses a persistent gap between Building Information Modeling and structural analysis.
Abstract:
Structural reasoning requires geometry and an explicit load path, yet Building Information Modeling involves complex eometrical representations and maintains structural connectivity in a separate analysis model. This paper introduces a compact geometry schema for prefabricated structural building systems that reduces elements to parametric primitives while observing their manufacturability. The data schema captures only the information required by a structural model, including loads, supports, materials, cross-sections, hinges, and explicit load-path relations between elements. The data schema defines four element types (slab, column, wall, and beam) as bounded regions of infinite parent primitives and scopes their properties to a Eurocode 2 catalogue of concrete classes and reinforced concrete sections, following a verifiable, selective Design for Manufacture and Assembly approach. Each instance, created in CAD, passes three validation gates that return actionable diagnostics for any problematic elements. The validated instances undergo finite element analysis, where the primitives are translated into structural models to ensure Eurocode 2 compliance, and are exported as a heterogeneous graph with typed relations that explicitly represent load-path topologies. Testing and manual dataset creation are made possible by an application programming interface that connects to CAD software, which returns user feedback as color-coded geometry, error messages, and two viewers: finite element modeling of utilization and deformation, and 3D graph view. On two example building systems, faulty instances are rejected with element-level diagnostics and corrected ones pass all gates. The contribution is a compact, code-scoped representation for structural reasoning that is, by construction, manufacturable, compliance-checkable, executable by finite elements, and graph-ready.