Unlike the classical Pattern Deformations assignment discussed here and here, this time we asked Design Geometry students in 2014 to explore deformations by using referential systems as a secondary space. We wanted them to create variations on a regular pattern only by deforming its underpinning lattice. Below are three examples of this alternative assignment. I’m thinking about improving this exercise to three dimensions, seems possible to implement by using the cage […]

Here is a test of the optical flow component of Firefly. You can check the Firefly add-on to Grasshopper here. As an ongoing research project, I’ve been searching for a suitable platform to study responsive geometric patterns. This initial study focuses on one particular effect of Firefly, the optical flow that outputs the direction vectors on a given webcam input. I developed traces of it by joining endpoints of these […]

Currently, Rhinoceros does not offer the capability for an aligned text onto a curve, to the best of my knowledge. However, Grasshopper, with its latest version, provides a solution for such tasks by offering a range of text components. For my current project, I am studying an installation. It incorporates various typographic effects, and Grasshopper has become an invaluable tool in this regard. Nevertheless, it is important to note that […]

Here are some before and after photos of our first-year Computation-based Basic Design student works. In the beginning, they were all full of life, nevertheless, after a couple of seasons, things started to change slowly. Although they look old and deformed, they are still standing. Reason: Extending the phase space of material performance, unfolding the impossibility of permanence… Or just snow load. It used to be quite durable until recently. Reason: […]

The final countdown has started until the jury of this semester’s Basic Design studio. Everyone is excited to see the products of this year’s architecture, interior design, and industrial design students, while they are trying to set a higher standard for the exercise.  They’ll use both digital and physical media to unfold their design intentions about a systematic whole. Below is the current situation of our group together with Fulya […]

Lokma is the name of a pastry made of fried dough soaked in sugar syrup or honey and cinnamon, typically shaped into a ring or ball. Unfortunately, it is not the “Lokma” we’ll study here. In Turkish, there is another meaning of the same word related to the history of Eastern architecture. It is the name of metal connectors in railings, mostly inside of the openings of garden walls and […]

Here is a phrase from Deleuze’s famous article “Difference and Repetition”. It clarifies my mind while thinking about patterns, boundaries, rules, and most importantly, the idea and techniques of deformation in contemporary architectural geometry. … On the other hand, generality belongs to the order of laws. However, law determines only the resemblance of the subjects ruled by it, along with their equivalence to terms which it designates. Far from grounding […]

This year’s “Lanterns” assignment was nothing short of spectacular. It left both the students and faculty in awe of the creative brilliance displayed. Despite facing constraints in terms of time and experience, the Basic Design students surpassed all expectations. They crafted mesmerizing compositions of polyhedra and intricate unrolled surfaces. Their ability to conceptualize and execute such remarkable lantern designs can be attributed to the valuable skills they honed in their […]

In this fun experiment, points rock and roll! It should be based on a sound input of course but this is only a test to see if I can handle a timer and graph input at the same time. I’ll modify this definition to actuate with sound.  The use of the timer component gives a certain degree of randomness to the overall formation. Here is a video of the Headbanging Points […]

Bending is an easy operation in Rhino and Rhinoscript, however, Grasshopper did not include that particular transformation (along with cage editing) yet. I tried to simulate the bending transformation by using native Grasshopper components. First, surface projections and pulls did not work at all, because I wanted to simulate a real bending effect without changing the surface area or edge lengths. Then, the Surface Morph component seemed to handle this […]

Basic Design I exercise called “Cut and Fold: Deviation” explores diversity within relationships and material behavior. It is initially introduced by Salih Küçüktuna as a simple but effective exercise platform. Below are some students’ works on this one-week exercise. The term “deviation” has many uses in a range of fields from medicine to sociology. However, it is frequently used in statistics with an interesting evocation to design computing: In mathematics […]

In today’s drawing class, we taught methods of drawing basic transformations by hand. Mirror was one interesting subject of that. However, then I opened Grasshopper and Rhino to test the effects of curved mirror planes. Unfortunately, I realized that there is already a curved mirror component in Grasshopper :( Here is the Grasshopper definition: [GHX: 0.9.0061] This might be one of the simplest ways of introducing generative deformations for design […]

I’ve come across this nice website about the short history of tilings and tessellations. In this post, I am regenerating a tiling of Dürer rhombii. Albrecht Dürer sounds like one of the pioneers of some of the concepts of today’s emerging field of architectural geometry. Here is a phrase from that website about Dürer; “…Like Kepler, regular polygons and polyhedra fascinated Dürer… A large section of the Painter’s Manual is dedicated to […]

While looking at the student works of my 2009 class, I realized that in some cases, the “pipe” component takes a considerable amount of time to execute even on fast computers. Students mostly create pipes to model structural frame systems such as canopies and facade frames. Therefore, the path of the pipe is usually linear (not curved). I decided to calculate the performances of three approaches that could be used […]

Below is some student works from this year’s Architectural Geometry / Pattern Deformations assignment. Students developed their own pattern deformation sequences mostly on regular tessellations. Based on the classical Parquet Deformation exercise, we tried to implement a rule-based approach in order to explore emergent patterns. The exercise seems to reveal endless improvisation potential. The exercise requires students to design a pattern deformation on a 28cm by 28cm area. It should […]

Force fields might be one of the most influential component sets of Grasshopper. Thus it also becomes a de-facto standard design approach like the Voronoi subdivision. There are beautiful examples of this mathematical solution. Here is a good explanation of mathematics underneath, and here are my previous studies. I tried to use the Grasshopper’s force field components and see how it looks like when animated. Thus, multiple spin forces are merged […]

Here is a simple description of Rhinoceros’ Printing dialog. It is the same with version 4.0, nothing changed in layout and printing dialogs in 5.0. Significantly our Architectural Geometry classes should benefit from this explanation. Most of these options should be tested with a plotter (e.g. pencil widths) before final print-outs. Also, you may try creating a PDF file of your homework from this dialog.