To kick things off I'll be experimenting with AMPL (A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming). So far I have discovered that the solver I am using have some oddities when I allow variables to be too small (less than .01) but if I pick the right totally arbitrary modeling units I should be fine.  Heres the fun part: what to look for next.  The first test will be to solve the proportions of a doric column from its radius.  The next test is to compute the various sizes of the largest Parthenon that will fit on a given footprint.