  The design of a building requires an architect to balance a wide range of
constraints: aesthetic, geometric, usability, lighting, safety, etc. At the
same time, there are often a multiplicity of diverse designs that can meet
these constraints equally well. Architects must use their skills and artistic
vision to explore these rich but highly constrained design spaces. A number of
computer-aided design tools use automation to provide useful analytical data
and optimal designs with respect to certain fitness criteria. However, this
automation can come at the expense of a designer's creative control.
  We propose uDOME, a user-in-the-loop system for computer-aided design
exploration that balances automation and control by efficiently exploring,
analyzing, and filtering the space of environment layouts to better inform an
architect's decision-making. At each design iteration, uDOME provides a set of
diverse designs which satisfy user-defined constraints and optimality criteria
within a user defined parameterization of the design space. The user then
selects a design and performs a similar optimization with the same or different
parameters and objectives. This exploration process can be repeated as many
times as the designer wishes. Our user studies indicates that \DOME, with its
diversity-based approach, improves the efficiency and effectiveness of even
novice users with minimal training, without compromising the quality of their
designs.
