A design support apparatus for determining a plurality of objective functions for modeling an object having a plurality of elements, each of the elements providing variable geometrical parameters, the design support apparatus includes a memory for storing the variable geometrical parameters and a processor for executing a process including: determining boundary information associated with specified geometrical parameters of the elements which indicate a state of contact between the elements, dividing the variable geometrical parameters into a plurality of groups on the basis of the boundary information, and determining the plurality of objective functions for each of the groups by using the variable geometrical parameters.