[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.