Grasshopper Canvas with Kinect Interaction: Part 2
Over the past year, we’ve made the Microsoft Kinect sense touch – and in turn, gestures – which we then used to control the Grasshopper canvas via keyboard and mouse events. We’ve had a lot of fun building Kinect Multitouch Interactions but – being an architecture firm – we can only spend so much time developing the code. We think we’ve created a solid foundation and would like to share with the broader community to use, modify, and extend. Obviously, Grasshopper is only one possible application and we’d love to see what others could do. In the spirit of openness, we’re providing the complete source.
Energy Monitoring 101: Open Standards
In almost every architectural project we undertake at LMN, we urge the client to seriously consider sub-metering and energy monitoring. After years of recommending this, we decided to “eat our own dog food.” We wanted to understand the underlying costs, infrastructure changes, and digital tools necessary for proper energy monitoring so – for our office – we put together our own customized solution based upon open standards hardware and software. Here’s a detailed account of how it’s going…
DIVA is Awesome and Everyone Should Use It
We’ve been playing around with the DIVA plugin for Rhino and Grasshopper for the past month. DIVA stands for Design Iterate Validate Adapt which is similar to the approach that we take with parametric modeling.
By looking at a large number of iterations it often is possible to tease out patterns of performance which can help to find a “satisficing” solution and help designers to develop a better intuition about how to approach a problem.
Flexible Grids in Self-Structure Exhibition
Our flexible grid research project is currently being exhibited at Le Lieu du Design in Paris. While preparing materials for the exhibition we decided to try and build a longer version of the flexible grid. Our previous grid prints were sized to take up roughly half of the print bed (5″x7″) of our Objet Alaris30, but for the exhibit we wanted something bigger. We ended up being able to get an 8″x20″ version, and learned a number of lessons along the way.
Med Mart 5: Panel Fabrication
As we developed our precast panel surface geometry, we found ourselves increasingly pushing the limits of our rendering engines. We knew that natural light could potentially reveal different effects on the complex surfaces, and physical models would be the only trustworthy method of study to ensure a more predictable final product. The fabrication process of the model paralleled the fabrication process for the full size panels. Our close collaboration with the form-liner and precast fabricators helped to fine tune the design beyond our initial assumptions.
Med Mart 4: Facade Design Coordination
The ambitious schedule of the Cleveland Med Mart project required us to reexamine and retool some of the ways we design, document, and deliver a project. As the leaders of the design effort, we knew that we would need to find and build smart connections between our generative design tools and our documentation process in order to not only meet deadlines, but also adapt to the parameters that were developing throughout the design-assist process. This post outlines our linking of Grasshopper and Revit – through a custom utility called Cricket …
Med Mart 3: Daylighting the Atrium
In this post, we move into the interior to talk about how we are using daylight inside the building. A major feature of the design is a large central atrium with a four-story structural glass wall facing the Mall. While providing a good amount of natural light to the atrium, this entirely glazed edge also contrasts greatly with the three other non-glazed walls. We knew we needed a strategy to more effectively balance the light levels throughout the space, and our goal was to achieve that with natural lighting.
Med Mart 2: Panel Texture and Geometry
While studying the overall configuration of the Medical Mart facade, we were also developing textural concepts for the surface of the precast concrete panels. We were interested in using the surface texture of the precast concrete panels to build increasing layers of detail to what will be a very large scale facade. With very little time to execute the study and produce a constructable solution, we knew we needed to develop a faster way of generating ideas. Our working process developed rapidly into a focused study of rectangular surface forms.
Med Mart 1: Generation of Facade Geometry
From the beginning of our design work on the facade system for the Cleveland Med Mart, we desired to develop a system that would give the building multiple layers of varied, unifying texture, legible from multiple scales. Initial explorations of this concept focused on the textural capacities of precast concrete panels and later move on to studying the process for panelizing the entire facade with precast and glazing units. Parametric modeling allowed us to explore many iterations of the facade while also keeping control of the information needed for fabrication.
Med Mart: Introduction
This is the first in a series of post that will describe LMNts involvement in the design of the Cleveland Medical Mart. In February of 2010, a joint partnership between Merchandise Mart Properties (MMPI) and Cuyahoga County chose LMN Architects as the designer for the Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center project. The Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center is the city’s most prominent effort to date in reinventing itself as the country’s hub of medical research and trade activity.
Grasshopper Analysis Key
This is a quick post about a definition that we’ve put together to create an analysis key in the Rhino viewport. The key will automatically update to the current view when the timer component is activated. There is the ability to control the size, position and colors of the analysis key.
DIY Glowflake
Shortly after we posted our 2010 Holiday Card video, we had many people ask us for the patterns and a how-to manual for making spherical, “glowflake”-style shapes. Fortunately, making a “Glowflake” isn’t hard or time consuming. We’ve posted both the Grasshopper definition as well as the 2D pattern for our Glowflake below. Just follow the simple instructions and you too can be the proud owner of a custom magnetic light fixture.
Xenakis’ Reynolds House
We recently had the opportunity to produce a physical scale-model of an unbuilt design of Iannis Xenakis. Xenakis was the Greek/French composer, music-theorist, and architect, best known for his use of mathematical models, stochastic processes, and game theory in his composition. Xenakis was an important influence on the development of electronic music and he also [...]
Sightlines and View Obstructions
This Grasshopper definition takes any potential point of view and simulates a spectator’s quality of view based upon what areas on the stage would be blocked from view.
Grasshopper Contour Tool
This definition was written to speed up the process of creating a contour model while limiting the amount of waste generated during the fabrication of the physical model. An interface was developed within Grasshopper where all of the important settings can be controlled, allowing those who know little about grasshopper to still use the definition. [...]
Grasshopper to ANSYS
If you’ve played with Grasshopper then you know how much fun it can be to throw the sliders back and forth and watch your geometry change. What if you wanted to get analysis data for everyone of those iterations? Parametric modeling eases the task of generating multiple iterations, but it can be a bit laborious [...]
Grasshopper to Excel Exporter
One of the amazing things about working with Grasshopper is the ability to generate lots of information, a key part of Building Information Modeling. However, it can sometimes be difficult to get that information out of Grasshopper in an organized form. Damien Alomar’s work with GH and Excel served as the initial inspiration for this [...]
TAS Ambiens Workflow
Though Ambiens is technically a piece of CFD software, it allows for rapid modeling (when you get used to its quirks) and very quick simulations (often less than 2 minutes). After playing with Ambiens for about an hour, you should be able to run relatively complex studies…which is a-typical of most airflow modeling software…so as quirky as the software is, the “bang for the buck” is fairly good.