[eadmund]

The author describes the results as 'irrational,' but I'd hardly agree with the negative connotation of that word: I think that the generated floorplans look lovely, and I wish that I'd gone to school somewhere like that. Far from irrational, I think it's quite rational to try to design buildings to be pleasant to live in, not just easy to draw with a straightedge.

Also, the generated rooms look much like the sort of rooms one would build with cob. A cob schoolhouse could be awesome.

[ghein]

The reward function was horrible!

You need good sightlines for the kids, room for desks, and need to ensure kids aren't isolated in a corner. Plus light (not just to a small courtyard), ability to escape in case of fire or other emergency!!!!!!! and for minimal noise intrusion from other classrooms.

Minimal space and building material are just not the right constraints and speak to absolute ignorance of the actual problem on the part of the designer.

[setr]

it seems like it speaks more to the disinterest in providing an actual solution. The article is providing a possible route to finding a solution; not giving it. I mean he literally only optimizes on three parameters: windows, escape routes, and traffic usage.

He even clearly states his goals: The creative goal is to approach floor plan design solely from the perspective of optimization and without regard for convention, constructability, etc. The research goal is to see how a combination of explicit, implicit and emergent methods allow floor plans of high complexity to evolve.

Nowhere does he claim this is an implementable solution, or meant to be one... just an interesting one, given a set of priorities.

[QML]

I will have to disagree with the author’s characterization of these floor plans as irrational.

As pointed out by commentator from the r/ML subreddit, the plans resemble biological arteries — which intuitively make sense given that the objective was to minimize distance to nearest fire exit. The analog is that arteries try to maximize surface area to volume ratio to ensure blood flood.