Thomas Spiegelhalter
Prof. Thomas Spiegelhalter, PhD, is a licensed German-US architect, engineer and urban planner. He has performed design and built research in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the U.S. on numerous solar, carbon-neutral, zero-fossil-energy, and passive architectural projects; large-scale master planning and post-industrial infrastructures, landscapes, and engineered suspension bridges. As a result of his 34 years of awarded designs and built work, consulting, research, and teaching, Spiegelhalter has received 54 prizes, awards, and honours in competitions individually and in collaboration with engineers. His research work as a Professor at FIU involves geospatial and climatic data repositories with AI-ML-data-driven generative design workflows, mostly BIM-Dynamo-Grasshopper coding with biomimetics. The current bio-inspired research (http://crunch.fiu.edu/) is focused on optimized carbon-positive building and city design and planning scenarios towards carbon neutrality on a timeline from 2018 to 2100. Spiegelhalter has participated twice at the Venice Architecture Biennale, taught at several universities, and held visiting professor positions at institutions worldwide. He was the Global Visiting Professor at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, from May 2023 to May 2024.
Phone: 305-535-2663
Address: FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
College of Architecture and the Arts
CO-Director Structures and EnvironmentalTechnologies Lab (SET)
11200 SW 8th Street, # PCA-377-ARC
Miami, FL, 33199, U.S.
Phone: 305-535-2663
Address: FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
College of Architecture and the Arts
CO-Director Structures and EnvironmentalTechnologies Lab (SET)
11200 SW 8th Street, # PCA-377-ARC
Miami, FL, 33199, U.S.
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Books by Thomas Spiegelhalter
Spiegelhalter's exploration of architectural innovation goes beyond theory. It's a practical guide where traditional design meets cutting-edge science, including generative AI, machine learning, and synthetic biology. This visionary approach leads to creating of biomass-integrated, carbonpositive, renewable energy-powered buildings and cities. These structures seamlessly blend with the natural world, fostering interorganismal communication between nature and the growing infrastructure.
Through a captivating personal narrative enriched by decades of practice and research, Spiegelhalter navigates from his roots in analogue sculpture and design to pioneering explorations in bio-inspired architecture.
This book is not merely a historical record but a forward-looking manifesto advocating for interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle the complex challenges of climate change within the energy, food, and water nexus.
With projects ranging from solarpowered buildings, green-blue-infrastructural digital twin scenario designs from 2018 to 2100 in Miami to 3Dprinted structures and bridges globally, and discussions on disruptive technologies like BIM and generative AI design algorithms, this book is a vital resource for anyone interested in the future of resilient, and adaptive urban design.
Green Automation: Design Optimization,
Manufacturing, and Life-Cycle
Sustainability
Alfredo Andia and Thomas Spiegelhalter: Introduction
Automating practice is a pathway of interoperable computation in the
design and engineering workfl ow toward carbon-neutral architecture. In
this chapter we argue that major international and national agreements
that set new mandatory targets for achieving net-zero-energy buildings,
to infrastructures, and cities by 2018–2030 are and will be a major driver
of process automation with integrated project delivery in the AEC industry
(Figure 2.1).
While there are a growing number of software applications and countless
methods for writing custom applications and programs capable of
leveraging the use of learning algorithms for many tasks within an
automated design process, there is still a very limited understanding of
how to integrate and adapt these capabilities into fully automated designto-
factory-fi le workfl ows. For instance, automation processes with feedback
loop capabilities are natural partners to help designers improve the
parameter inputs, predictions, optimize scheduling, identify patterns,
and coordinate clashes and interferences. This also includes control and
monitoring of ineffi cient energy and water systems in a building or even a
city. In this example the most improved predictive systems are the most
automated ones.
This chapter surveys the current generation of computational design
optimization tools with interoperable whole-project analysis platforms,
manufacturing, and building automation as they are currently used in the
practice of engineering and architecture. However, the next generation
of computational programming will begin to occur inside the automation
domain and not in terms of software design.
The design research topics are:
- Social Housing with particular reference to the experimentation and design innovation including ecological systems;
- The issues of the technological production related to the design of prefabricated lightweight building systems in relation to the requirements for flexibility, modifiability, self-sufficiency, upgradeability and self-constructability.
The analysis and comparisons are intended to develop operational strategies that can foresee a comprehensive set of design responses for system performance requirements, with the definition of new sustainable design approaches, new methods of procedure, and new solutions towards environmental issues of climate change and sea level rise.
The study materials for this book were collected by the architects Panarelli and Di Tonno on the basis to gain new experiences on the issues of Climate Responsive Architecture and Parametric Design Work Flows coordinated and developed by Prof. Thomas Spiegelhalter with students and two instructors Claudia Busch and Linda Ghomora of the College of Architecture at FIU.
This book features ten different approaches each envisioning and testing self-sufficient, adaptive, and resilient hybrid structures benchmarked against 100% carbon-neutrality using calibrated Autodesk Building Information Modeling (BIM) through cloud engines in Green Building Studio (GBS), Insight 360, Dynamo-Grasshopper, EnergyPlus, and eQuest tool-sets. All research designs were based on approximately 80-year scenarios in which modelling by NOAA, NASA, and reinsurance companies place much of the City of Miami Beach's existing infrastructure underwater. The research focuses on a low-lying area called Lake Pancoast on Indian Creek in Miami Beach that is currently undergoing a massive city-led infrastructure transformation to raise roads, install stormwater management systems, and a proposed living shoreline. Based on this "living shoreline" strategy of biotechnological, adaptive ecosystems such as mangroves, oysters and coral clusters, projects were developed as part of a bigger citywide program to combat sea-level rise.https://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.aspx?CodiceLibro=1098.2.57
Gianmichele Panarelli (88.2)
Il lavoro di Spiegelhalter è fortemente indirizzato a ricerche su fabbricati solari, a zero energia fossile, passivi e a basso consumo energetico, a interventi di recupero urbanistico in grande scala con criteri di sostenibilità e a progettazione di infrastrutture. Primaria importanza viene data all’efficienza nell’uso di risorse sull’intero ciclo di vita del fabbricato, sviluppando soluzioni che comprendono parametri ecologici, climatici, sociali, culturali ed economici e che portano a grandi innovazioni nei sistemi costruttivi.
Gianmichele Panarelli (88.2)
Il lavoro di Spiegelhalter è fortemente indirizzato a ricerche su fabbricati solari, a zero energia fossile, passivi e a basso consumo energetico, a interventi di recupero urbanistico in grande scala con criteri di sostenibilità e a progettazione di infrastrutture. Primaria importanza viene data all’efficienza nell’uso di risorse sull’intero ciclo di vita del fabbricato, sviluppando soluzioni che comprendono parametri ecologici, climatici, sociali, culturali ed economici e che portano a grandi innovazioni nei sistemi costruttivi.
Papers by Thomas Spiegelhalter
Spiegelhalter's exploration of architectural innovation goes beyond theory. It's a practical guide where traditional design meets cutting-edge science, including generative AI, machine learning, and synthetic biology. This visionary approach leads to creating of biomass-integrated, carbonpositive, renewable energy-powered buildings and cities. These structures seamlessly blend with the natural world, fostering interorganismal communication between nature and the growing infrastructure.
Through a captivating personal narrative enriched by decades of practice and research, Spiegelhalter navigates from his roots in analogue sculpture and design to pioneering explorations in bio-inspired architecture.
This book is not merely a historical record but a forward-looking manifesto advocating for interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle the complex challenges of climate change within the energy, food, and water nexus.
With projects ranging from solarpowered buildings, green-blue-infrastructural digital twin scenario designs from 2018 to 2100 in Miami to 3Dprinted structures and bridges globally, and discussions on disruptive technologies like BIM and generative AI design algorithms, this book is a vital resource for anyone interested in the future of resilient, and adaptive urban design.
Green Automation: Design Optimization,
Manufacturing, and Life-Cycle
Sustainability
Alfredo Andia and Thomas Spiegelhalter: Introduction
Automating practice is a pathway of interoperable computation in the
design and engineering workfl ow toward carbon-neutral architecture. In
this chapter we argue that major international and national agreements
that set new mandatory targets for achieving net-zero-energy buildings,
to infrastructures, and cities by 2018–2030 are and will be a major driver
of process automation with integrated project delivery in the AEC industry
(Figure 2.1).
While there are a growing number of software applications and countless
methods for writing custom applications and programs capable of
leveraging the use of learning algorithms for many tasks within an
automated design process, there is still a very limited understanding of
how to integrate and adapt these capabilities into fully automated designto-
factory-fi le workfl ows. For instance, automation processes with feedback
loop capabilities are natural partners to help designers improve the
parameter inputs, predictions, optimize scheduling, identify patterns,
and coordinate clashes and interferences. This also includes control and
monitoring of ineffi cient energy and water systems in a building or even a
city. In this example the most improved predictive systems are the most
automated ones.
This chapter surveys the current generation of computational design
optimization tools with interoperable whole-project analysis platforms,
manufacturing, and building automation as they are currently used in the
practice of engineering and architecture. However, the next generation
of computational programming will begin to occur inside the automation
domain and not in terms of software design.
The design research topics are:
- Social Housing with particular reference to the experimentation and design innovation including ecological systems;
- The issues of the technological production related to the design of prefabricated lightweight building systems in relation to the requirements for flexibility, modifiability, self-sufficiency, upgradeability and self-constructability.
The analysis and comparisons are intended to develop operational strategies that can foresee a comprehensive set of design responses for system performance requirements, with the definition of new sustainable design approaches, new methods of procedure, and new solutions towards environmental issues of climate change and sea level rise.
The study materials for this book were collected by the architects Panarelli and Di Tonno on the basis to gain new experiences on the issues of Climate Responsive Architecture and Parametric Design Work Flows coordinated and developed by Prof. Thomas Spiegelhalter with students and two instructors Claudia Busch and Linda Ghomora of the College of Architecture at FIU.
This book features ten different approaches each envisioning and testing self-sufficient, adaptive, and resilient hybrid structures benchmarked against 100% carbon-neutrality using calibrated Autodesk Building Information Modeling (BIM) through cloud engines in Green Building Studio (GBS), Insight 360, Dynamo-Grasshopper, EnergyPlus, and eQuest tool-sets. All research designs were based on approximately 80-year scenarios in which modelling by NOAA, NASA, and reinsurance companies place much of the City of Miami Beach's existing infrastructure underwater. The research focuses on a low-lying area called Lake Pancoast on Indian Creek in Miami Beach that is currently undergoing a massive city-led infrastructure transformation to raise roads, install stormwater management systems, and a proposed living shoreline. Based on this "living shoreline" strategy of biotechnological, adaptive ecosystems such as mangroves, oysters and coral clusters, projects were developed as part of a bigger citywide program to combat sea-level rise.https://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.aspx?CodiceLibro=1098.2.57
Gianmichele Panarelli (88.2)
Il lavoro di Spiegelhalter è fortemente indirizzato a ricerche su fabbricati solari, a zero energia fossile, passivi e a basso consumo energetico, a interventi di recupero urbanistico in grande scala con criteri di sostenibilità e a progettazione di infrastrutture. Primaria importanza viene data all’efficienza nell’uso di risorse sull’intero ciclo di vita del fabbricato, sviluppando soluzioni che comprendono parametri ecologici, climatici, sociali, culturali ed economici e che portano a grandi innovazioni nei sistemi costruttivi.
Gianmichele Panarelli (88.2)
Il lavoro di Spiegelhalter è fortemente indirizzato a ricerche su fabbricati solari, a zero energia fossile, passivi e a basso consumo energetico, a interventi di recupero urbanistico in grande scala con criteri di sostenibilità e a progettazione di infrastrutture. Primaria importanza viene data all’efficienza nell’uso di risorse sull’intero ciclo di vita del fabbricato, sviluppando soluzioni che comprendono parametri ecologici, climatici, sociali, culturali ed economici e che portano a grandi innovazioni nei sistemi costruttivi.
Enhancing the depth of our discussion were scholars and guests from across the globe - Europe, the US, and Latin America. The dialogue benefited from the participation of FIU's scholars, such as Associated Dean Prof. John Stuart, Chair of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Roberto Rovira, Computer Practice Instructor Colin Mele, and Clotilde Picart Laguer of Career and Talent Development, among others.
With a significant position on the UK Royal Statistics Authority board, Sir Prof. David's reach is vast since the 1980s. His ties encompass the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's premier Data Science and AI hub. A former president and a celebrated Fellow of the UK's Statistical Society, his vast expertise often finds a platform in major outlets like the BBC, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, CNN and other global media.
This hour-long session seamlessly integrated David's vast knowledge into the architectural inquiries of master students at FIU. Their research delves deep into the possibilities of different types of algorithms, decision support systems, and generative AI machine learning, along with bio-inspired, carbon-positive architectural workflows in the built environment, health and well-being. These pursuits are firmly anchored in meticulous statistical approaches, algorithms, and operational flows.