Phyllotaxis Tower

This is an idea for a skyscraper based on spiral phyllotaxis, like the sunflower system, that exhibits spiral pods always in Fibonacci numbers.

Monocoque from single list definitions

This is a simple example of a monocoque generated from points on a surface. With just a few components, sixteen points are inputted to draw an interpolated curve on the surface. This was done before the implementation of data-trees in Grasshopper, so, from a single list of points a zigzag curve is drawn. In order to have two directions to work structurally, the sixteen points are inputted once again, resembling the other order needed.

In general, single list have been seen as a limitation when working with surface sub-parameters, but in this case I was taking advantage of them to get this aesthetic output.

Honeycomb script published in aU

On April, 2009, in number 181 of Brazilian aU Magazine, Affonso Orciuoli published the article: TI aplicada à arquitetura: o antes e o depois (IT applied in architecture: before and after), in which he exposes the uses of scripting, parametric modeling and digital fabrication in architecture. He mentions some experiences like our Tooling workshop or the Radiolarian Walls project and shows one of my experiments: the Honeycomb script. This is a simplification of Andrew Kudless’ script that I’ve originally prepared for teaching RhinoScript. Here is shown in a mid stage. Recent versions have improved efficiency making a more elegant code.

Thanks to Affonso for inviting me to collaborate in his article.

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Em abril de 2009, no numero 181 da brasileira Revista aU, Affonso Orciuoli publicou o artigo: TI aplicada à arquitetura: o antes e o depois, no cual ele expõe os usos do Scripting, a modelagem paramétrica e a fabricação digital na arquitetura. Ele menciona algumas experiencias como o nosso Tooling workshop ou o projeto das paredes radiolárias e mostra um dos meus experimentos: o script do Honeycomb. Este é uma simplificação do script do Andrew Kudless, que preparei originalmente para dar aula de RhinoScript. Aqui mostra-se numa etapa média. Versões recentes têm uma eficiência melhorada, providenciando um código mais elegante.

Obrigado ao Affonso por invitar-me a colaborar no seu artigo.

Inside Staircase example

One of the most known examples David Rutten was used to show when was presenting Grasshopper was the Staircase example, because is relatively simple to assemble, it's amazing to see the fast-and-easy interactive feedback of parameter changes and, at the end, it's a parametric architectural element. But when teaching Grasshopper, I rather to follow the same constructive approach to generative design —from points, to curves to surfaces— that I've used in RhinoScript, and the Staircase is a good example to introduce Orientation. Therefore, I use it as a fourth or fifth example.

And for not repeating the exact definition that everyone can find on Internet, here is another example (with more components, but still simple), in which four points are inputted to construct a control point Nurbs curve of 2^nd degree (instead of an interpolated curve), not used as axial but as an external border generative curve, so that the location of input points can also respond to external parameters like surrounding spaces of a building.

Update 2018-02-13:

As requested by readers, I've updated the definition and you can download it: InsideStaircase-180213.gh (26.5 KB).
Runs in Grasshopper 0.9.0076 (and above, if developers keep backwards compatibility).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

'Ocurt' assignments: undergraduate advice at ESARQ

During academic year 2008-2009, Professor Antonio Sanmartín and T.A. Marc Camallonga invited me to do an advice in their last year Architectural Projects class, in the undergraduate program at ESARQ – UIC.

Although they don’t consider themselves up to date in matters of digital technologies in architecture, they have a very interesting approach to encourage students to design algorithmically and, by doing so, evolving beyond XX^th century. They begin by studying parameters to create variables from site and context, and also from a very different income: literature. They chose a novel and distributed it, one chapter per student, to generate a diagram from it (in the very Eisenman style!).

My contribution began doing a short lecture on algorithmic design and giving what they called the ‘Ocurt’ assignment: to take the diagram and site variables and develop a complex surface out of them by an algorithmic strategy. Remembering Karl Chu’s reconsideration of Eisenman, I taught them a strategy of synthesizing data and mapping it on a base shape, based on Chu’s morphogenetic approach that he teaches in the Master by an analogic algorithmic strategy (without programming).

In a more advanced stage, I was called for a second 'Ocurt' assignment: a digital fabrication plan. After suggesting some reference reading on the subject, a CAD/CAM strategy was applied to the developed architectural element, so that it could be fabricated in the CNC machine of the school. Some cases required basic training in rationalization of complex surfaces with PanelingTools.

The image shows some student projects at different stages. Photos by Marc Camallonga.

Thanks to Alberto T. Estévez for recommending me to Antonio Sanmartín for this class.

Radiolarian Ceiling

Continuing my collaboration in the Radiolarian Walls project, I presented an alternative design for the ceilings, which served as the starting point for the continuation of that part of the project by other colleagues in the research line.

Also, I did some advice to these colleagues, suggested modeling strategies and developed some scripts to generate different patterns of holes for the roof.

Vertical Milling problem

In some moment in the Radiolarian Walls project, I came out with a zigzag joint solution to the continuity issue in the wall tessellation. That implies that we no longer leave the original boundaries of the provided material for the finished panels, but we had to mill in a vertical way to get our custom borders.

As part of planning for machining, I developed a series of simulations in which we could visualize a problem in this cases that require vertical cuts. The study showed that depending on the depth of cut, the head of the tool may collide with the material, breaking it. It also showed that in cases of milling a surface with a certain slope, the milling itself provided enough space for the movement of the tool head (that’s the reason why it hadn’t happened before). Thanks to this, we could foresee the purchase of a longer tool.

Radiolarian Walls project

This is a project conceived and directed by Alberto T. Estévez within the Genetic Architectures research line at ESARQ. Is an opportunity to get research ideas to the real world, addressing a client of Estévez who requested the interiors of a therapy and treatment office in Barcelona.

The project consists of a system of dry-walls and ceilings designed as an interpretation of radiolarians bone structures. This project develops a series of hexagonal cells that repeats as a tessellation throughout a plane and, following a bone structure logic, generates volumes that get thicker at nodes, forming spikes and leaving circular holes. From the modeling point of view, this is done from a grid of hexagons, each with a circle inscribed in its center. The size of the circles corresponds to another system for increasing diameters that define it.

My work began when, due to a rethink on the size of wall panels, I had to set another hexagonal grid, and therefore, recalculate the diameter of circles. After, I rebuild the methodology of modeling from the new circles and hexagons, so that they could contain spikes and holes in a single NURBS surface per cell. Once the new methodology was solved, I implemented it in RhinoScript, creating an automated tool for modeling complex surfaces that form each cell of that panel.

As part of the script, forms are generated oriented for machining a Polystyrene foam panel in the three-axis milling machine, one side at a time.