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.
Grasshopper Canvas with Kinect Interaction: Part 1
In a previous post, we elaborated on how more real estate for the Grasshopper Canvas can be beneficial and usable with Wiimote interaction. Since then, we have been toying around with the Microsoft Kinect (more so after the release of the beta version of the Kinect SDK for the PC), looking to identify a more [...]
ACADIA/FLATCUT Competition Entry
A few of us in the office (kbeck, scrawford, svandyck) put together an entry for the partition category of this year’s ACADIA/FLATCUT competition. We made it into the group of finalists (despite formatting our boards incorrectly), but unfortunately we were not selected as the winner (probably because we formatted our boards incorrectly, only kidding). The competition put forth an interesting challenge: use both rigid and flexible sheet materials to create an assembly (light, furniture, or partition) that highlights the properties of each material while minimizing the amount of waste. Included are the images and text from our submission as well as the final boards.
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.
Form Finding with Flexible Modules
Panelizing free-form surfaces is usually done using a large number of uniquely shaped pieces. A free-form surface can also be approximated using a predetermined module. The advantage is being able to limit the number of unique pieces necessary to fabricate that surface.
For this experiment, the module was flexible between panels, but each panel is rigid. A set of forces are then established between each module to control the relationships between modules once they are pulled to the base surface.
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.
PDX Video: ScriptJigs
I recently gave a talk at Portland State University’s Fridays@4 lecture series. I focused on the relationship between parametrics and performance analysis and gave demos of using Grasshopper, GECO, and Ecotect. The video in this post – recorded during the talk – is an overview of the process and how we use these tools in practice…
Seattle EUG: ScriptJIGs
I will be presenting at next week’s Seattle Ecotect Users Group meeting. I’ve been asked to speak on the topic of “scripting.” I’ll explain how LMNts has been employing Grasshopper as a sort of “digital script jig” to guide other tools, including Ecotect. Specifically, I’ll present a number of case studies on how analysis data is brought back into our design environments and how/why/when it is used to inform decisions.
Grasshopper Canvas Real Estate
Grasshopper needs more real estate. We’ve been addressing this problem by moving our Grasshopper definitions to a table-top display, tracking an IR LED light pen for interaction on the canvas. The canvas can take up the entire table-top while the linked geometry can be projected on a nearby wall. We’ve only begun setting up the equipment, but our early tests are promising.
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. [...]
Surface Patterning with UV Coordinates
Developing a patterned surface can be fairly simple when the surface you are working with is flat, but if you were to develop the same pattern from scratch on a curved surface then things become a little more difficult. Luckily, there is a way to convert a flat pattern to a curve pattern through the [...]
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 [...]
Generative Components Speed Ramps
Parking, parking, parking ramps. While not the most glamorous part of a building, parking speed-ramps are one of the most common. Even on a reasonably rectilinear project, parking speed ramps almost always have inner-slopes and outer-slopes, sometimes banking downward or upward as the case may be. Figuring out the slope may not be mathematically difficult, but modeling is tedious, and re-modeling is a waste of time. This is a perfect opportunity to do some scripting.
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 [...]
Grasshopper Space Planner
Projects will often start off with a period of program analysis, part of which requires each of the program spaces to be drawn to get a graphic sense of the project’s pieces. This information tends to be provided in the form of a spreadsheet which categorizes the spaces in addition to specifying the room’s name, quantity, areas, and other relevant information. With a few modifications, this spreadsheet can be used to generate all of the space geometry through the use of a Grasshopper definition.