A new numerical method based on fictitious domain methods for shape optimiz
ation problems governed by the Poisson equation is proposed. The basic idea
is to combine the boundary variation technique, in which the mesh is movin
g during the optimization, and efficient fictitious domain preconditioning
in the solution of the (adjoint) state equations. Neumann boundary value pr
oblems are solved using an algebraic fictitious domain method. A mixed form
ulation based on boundary Lagrange multipliers is used for Dirichlet bounda
ry problems and the resulting saddle-point problems are preconditioned with
block diagonal fictitious domain preconditioners. Under given assumptions
on the meshes, these preconditioners are shown to be optimal with respect t
o the condition number. The numerical experiments demonstrate the efficienc
y of the proposed approaches. Mathematics Subject Classification. 49M29, 65
F10, 65K10, 65N30, 65N55.