Changes characterizing our society include an ageing population, urban migration towards big cities, our lifestyle and work. These changes often make traditional building approaches obsolete. The existing building stock cannot totally satisfy the changed needs and new projects ask for careful valuations and new operating tools. In order to face the change, a feasible solution could be obtained by introducing the requisite of flexibility within both the design process and the construction technology of a building. By adopting a computational design methodology and an industrialized construction technology is possible to realize adaptive buildings, or buildings that can modify their characteristics according to the changing boundary conditions. The paper summarizes the management of adaptive/flexible buildings through the use of customized design tools, paying special attention to structural, energetic and technological issues. In order to design a building as an active, adjustable evolving system, is possible to develop a parametric program analysis visualization that allows to deeply understand complex architectural programs in four dimensions. The constantly evolving social mix is visualized with diagrams that automatically solve adjacency requirements and suggest planimetric and sectional relationships, enabling the user to explore different options and configurations. The algorithm can be implemented with arbitrary design choices and the programmatic use of collective spaces in order to reach the best feasible solution from the architectural and social standpoint. This raises questions as to how form emerges and how it continually differentiates, transforms and performs in relation to its specific environment. Several case studies show how it’s possible to increase structural efficiency allowing a great flexibility in the interior transformation which could be obtained during the service life cycle of the building. Using internal lightweight walls, flexibility and transformation can be easily obtained without using too much energy for the necessary works. Prefabricated façade elements are designed and conceived with the same level of flexibility as the interior walls, by using innovative materials such as textiles. Outdoor spaces could be integrated in the interior spaces (e.g. balcony could change into loggia). A proper evaluation of changes in natural lighting, fire safety, noise reduction, solar gains, thermal insulation is needed in order to always guarantee high levels of comfort. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
