Studios

Here are three technical tips, that might help you model in Rhinoceros faster. In most cases, you’ll find CTRL+F1,F2,F3 and F4 very helpful in modeling and transforming objects in digital space. These key combinations will focus you on Top, Front, Left and Perspective views (maximized) respectively. Also, when you try to express your design process (especially supporting geometries) using different linetypes, it’s possible that you’ll never like those preset linetypes. By choosing Tools / Options, you’ll have the opportunity to change and add new…

This was a design competition of a precast concrete roof system. My design proposal was a modular and variable structure for İstanbul’s old bus station, converted to art galleries. However, this project was developed purely by hand-sketches, I’m planning to create an envelope of alternatives by creating a parametric model. Each module is proposed to be converted differently in order to meet various functions such as single or double module galleries, shopping and restaurant, and a theater also. The varying…

This was a couple of months ago, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu (TUŞPA Architecture) has offered a design for a competition, the new TV Tower in İstanbul. Her design intention was mainly focused on the spatial qualities of the observation decks and the visual interpretations on the overall shape of the tower. Interesting part of this project was the experience of a collaborative design process. Nilüfer sketched her design ideas in Rhinoceros, and I tried to implement those ideas within Grasshopper to understand and…

Here are some basic references to Grasshopper’s handling of objects. As the most powerful and intuitive part of such Visual Programming Languages is the focus of dataflow, the critical part of it’s education lies at the fundamentals of data tree manipulations. Designers using these tools should understand and predict the type of data trees their parametric model would process. We’ll start with basic and the most important ones: Data tree conversion right on the input and output gates of any…

In the post of “animated parameters” we created a video file using Grasshopper’s “animate” functionality. A sequence of images are then joined together to form a video file. This time, we’ll create an animated gif image that can be played on web without even using a video player. It is a much simplier solution but however it does not have the potentials of a “real” video file such as mp4 or flv. If you own photoshop cs5, just open the first…

An octahedron is a polyhedron and platonic solid with 8 faces of identical equilateral triangles. In this post, I will try to explain the drawing and unrolling process of the octahedron. It has a close relationship with the cube as it’s dual. In order to construct an octahedron, we first have to create a square. The main problem of drawing the square is determining the right angle (perpendicular axis) to any point in Euclidean space. We’ll draw it here as…

Recording History in Rhinoceros3D has interesting potential. You might utilize it in the process of design exploration. We’ll try to show its concept and limitations; First, build two surfaces; one is planar at the world XY plane, and the other represents the “initial” form of your design. Put another surface on the planar one, as if it’s an ideal “component” of the finished geometric composition. Activate the “Record History” button at the bottom of the Rhinoceros window, then array your…

The dodecahedron is a Platonic Solid with 12 equilateral pentagonal faces. It has a close relationship with its 20-sided dual, Icosahedron. Mete Tüneri showed the following method of Dodecahedron construction, using only distances, corners of the pentagon, and a visionary equilateral triangle underneath. We’ll construct Dodecahedron, assuming that we’ve drawn an initial equilateral pentagon. We need to find out the pentagon’s angle of 3d rotation. First, put spheres at points a and c, with a radius of a to c. The…

ARCH 362: PARAMETRIC MODELING: Undergraduate Elective Course at İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture student exercise: Deniz Yazıcı (YTU/CADU 2008) COURSE BRIEF (2011) Digital paradigm transferred parametric modeling as an alternative conception in architecture, emphasizing a focal shift from the singularity of design artifacts to the explicit and generative process of designing. While architects start to experience the construction of algorithms, computers played an increasingly important role in the adaptation of this new conception utilizing design geometry. Architectural education also started…

Icosidodecahedron is an Archimedian Solid, a thing in between the Platonic Solids of Icosahedron (d20) and Dodecahedron (d12). It is a rectified version of an Icosahedron, constructed by dividing every edge into two equal segments and joining these segments to create a composition of equilateral pentagons and triangles. Archimedian Solids consist of at least two equilateral polygons, whereas Platonic Solids are constructed by only one. We’ll deduce an Icosidodecahedron from Icosahedron below; First, you should create an Icosahedron, the Platonic…