Towards an earthquake-resistant architectural design with the image classification method

Architectural design is an interdisciplinary process which involves multiple stages that are interconnected. In this process, it is common for major decisions to be changed during the final stage, the analysis of the structural system. After making substantial corrections, the architect has to revisit the early stages, the preliminary project. This back-and-forth process can result in significant losses in time and cost. The proposed Irregularity Control Assistant (IC-Assistant) aims to provide architects with feedback on the conformity of structural system decisions to the irregularities defined in the Turkish Building Earthquake Code (TBEC-2018), using image processing methods at the early stages of the design process. The IC-Assistant was preliminarily created to evaluate the torsional irregularity of plan organization using deep learning methods. In this study, the results of the IC-Assistant were verified by structural analysis with the Prota-Structure program. The novelty of this study is the use of the image-classification method in earthquake-resistant architectural design. Up to this point, the method has been mainly used in facial recognition systems. This method minimizes time, human error, and cost losses and includes awareness of load bearing and earthquake resistance as inputs in the early stages of architectural design.