Case Study: Digital Architects achieves 50% faster, cost‑saving prosthesis‑lab roof design with Altair SimSolid

Digital Architects Uses SimSolid to Cut Design Cycle Time by 50%

Digital Architects, a small Austrian architectural firm working with University of Innsbruck students and NGOs, faced the challenge of designing a very simple, robust and sustainable roof for a prosthesis lab at a hospital treating Buruli ulcer in Ivory Coast under an extremely tight budget and with limited steel profile materials. To evaluate multiple L-shaped steel profile options quickly and accurately they used Altair SimSolid from vendor Altair to run full-assembly structural analyses without time-consuming geometry simplification or meshing.

Altair SimSolid enabled Digital Architects to run full CAD assembly tests in minutes to seconds, cut the traditional design cycle time by roughly 50%, and reduce engineering hours while evaluating many alternatives on the fly. Altair’s solution allowed safe thinning of profiles to save €300–€400 in material costs—small on paper but meaningful for the hospital (e.g., providing food for children)—while delivering a robust, feasible roof design that met project deadlines.

Digital Architects

Atanas Zhelev

Digital Architects