Sam Conrad Joyce

Biography

Sam Conrad Joyce is an Associate Professor, with a joint appointment in Architecture and Sustainable Design pillar acting as coordinator for PhD programme as well as Design and Artificial Intelligence as studio leader for the Spatial AI Studio.

He heads up the Meta Design Lab a research group which focuses on the productive intersection between the city, creative design, and computation: Seeking new insights, interfaces, and collaborative models for human and machines to work together for the betterment of architecture and master planning. Specifically exploring the way that generative design, big data, analytics, and machine learning can augment existing human design processes though data visualisation, predictions, generative-AI, decision support, and web based feedback.

Prior to this he was an Associate at Foster + Partners, in the Applied Research and Development group leading structural integration and contributing to a range of projects including Mexico City New Airport, Apple Campus, Bloomberg Headquarters, and UAE Expo Pavilion Milan. And before this he held a role as Design Systems Analyst at Buro Happold working on geometrical, structural and master-planning projects, such as Louvré Abu Dhabi and both the London and Sochi Olympic Stadiums. Working with Autodesk developing the programming language Design Script for parametric design in Revit.

His doctoral work focused on applied design computation for integrated architectural and engineering in professional practice, deploying develop data rich systems for effective design space exploration and executive decision making. To enable this, his work synthesised and applied new techniques in distributed and scalable computing, multi-objective optimization, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and web based visualisation.

He has taught internationally including technical studies in the Architectural Association, London, and Design Programming at Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden. Holding workshops and collaborations widely including the Singapore Pavilion Venice Biennale, Smart Geometry at the University of Toronto, Kyoto University of Technology and Inujima Island with Sejima architects SANAA, and Geidai University Tokyo with Ryuji Fujimura Architects.

Education

• 2015 Engineering Doctorate in Systems, EngD, ‘Progressive performance driven design’, University of Bath and University of Bristol
• 2008 Master of Engineering (with honours), MEng, Civil and Architectural Engineering, University of Bath

Practice

• 2012 – 2015 Foster + Partners, London, UK
• 2009 – 2011 Buro Happold, Bath & London, UK
• 2008 – 2009 Foster + Partners, London, UK

Research Interests

• Optimization & Design Space Exploration
• Spatial Big Data & Social Data Analytics for Design Feedback
• Artificial Intelligence for Mixed Initiative Design
• Machine Learning for Design
• Web Based Visualisation & Interaction

Selected Research Project

• Principal Investigator, URA-SUTD Collaboration on Feedback Analytics, Supported by URA
• Principal Investigator, Airports Horizon 2050, Supported by SGP Avation, Foster + Partners
• Co-Principal Investigator, AI in Health: Urban Intervention, with LYKCIC, Supported by SGP Healthcare, Changi General Hospital, Tampines Town Council
• Principal Investigator, Design Versioning using Collaborative Cloud, Supported by the SUTD Pedagogy Innovations Grant
• Principal Investigator, Improving Design Decisions Through Data Visualisations, Supported by the International Design Center.
• Principal Investigator, Automated Building Design Space Exploration, Supported by the International Design Center.
• Principal Investigator, Networked Design Strategies, Supported by SUTD Start Up Research Fund

Selected Papers

• Meeran, A., Joyce, S.C., 2020 Machine Learning for Comparative Urban Planning at Scale: An Aviation Case Study, Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)
• Cristie, V., Joyce, S.C., 2020,Discovering Design Change Pattern Through Versioning, The 43rd Symposium on Computer Technology of Information, Systems and Applications AIJISA
• Nazim, I.,Joyce, S.C., 2019, User Directed Meta Parametric Design for Option Exploration, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)
• Guo, G., Dy, B., Nazim, I., Poorthuis, A., Joyce, S.C., 2020 Examining Design-Centric Test Participants in Graphical Perception Experiments, EuroVis 2020
• Joyce, S.C., Nazim, I., 2017, Exploring the Evolution of Meta Parametric Models, Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)
• Joyce, S.C., Guo, G., Dy, B., Nazim, I., Poorthuis, A., 2019. Seeing Numbers: Considering the Effect of Presentation of Engineering Data in Design. Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2019.
• Joyce, S.C., Nazim, I., 2017, A web based open infrastructure and tool for viewing parametric project development: towards new interfaces, Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2017.
• Cristie, V., Joyce, S.C., 2017, Understanding Parametric Design Flow Through Interactive Snapshots in the Web, IASS Annual Symposium 2017
• Cristie, V., Joyce, S.C., 2017, Connecting the dots – deriving insights into social behaviour around metro transport nodes through social media data in Singapore and beyond, International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management, University of Southern Australia, Adelaide, Australia
• Joyce, S. and Chaszar, A., 2016. Ecological and Economic Concepts for a Mixed Initiative Networked Generative Design Framework. In DS86: Proceedings of The Fourth International Conference on Design Creativity, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
• Chaszar, A. and Joyce, S.C., 2016. Generating freedom: Questions of flexibility in digital design and architectural computation. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 14(2), pp.167-181.
• Joyce, S.C., Chaszar, A., Ibrahim, N. And Cristie, V., 2016. Cloud Based Design Option Control Systems a Discussion and Implementation. Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2016 “Spatial Structures in the 21st Century”. IASS.
• Joyce, S.C., 2015, August. Web Based Data Visualisation Applied to Creative Decision Making in Parametric Structural Design. Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium “Future Visions”.
• Evins R., Joyce S. C., 2012, Multi-objective design optimisation: getting more for less, Institution of Civil Engineers, Civil Engineering Journal Special Issue 165 May 2012.
• Tsigkari M., Chronis A.,Joyce S.C., Aish F., Integrated design in the simulation process, Proceedings of the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture & Urban Design, 2013.
• Harding J., Joyce S., Shepherd P., Williams C., 2012, Thinking topologically at early stage parametric design, Proceedings of the Advances in Architectural Geometry Conference, Center de Pompidou, Paris, France 2012.
• Aish, R., Fisher, A., Joyce, S. and Marsh, A., 2012. Progress towards multi-criteria design optimisation using DesignScript with SMART form, robot structural analysis and Ecotect building performance analysis. ACADIA 12: Synthetic Digital Ecologies, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture San Francisco 2012.