Student project of the first year Computation-based Basic Design I studio at İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture. The contextual background is based on “Arboriform” which aimed to drive students’ design research process. Here is a quote from the student’s presentation: …Many of us do not believe and even do not want to believe in the compatibility of natural phenomena with things done by humans. Nature eliminates unfitted environmental factors while generating new potentialities from it. In our project, “symbiosis”, “tropism”, “branching”, “holding”, “rooting”…

This year’s first semester at Basic Design Studio was full of surprises. Together with Can Sucuoğlu and Birgül Çolakoğlu, we coordinated 9 student groups in their 4-week final project called “Arboriforms“.  “Arbori-” is derived from the Latin word “arbor,” meaning “tree,” and “-form” indicates a shape or form. Therefore, we can understand “arboriform” as an adjective describing something that is tree-like in appearance, structure, or form. For example, one might use the term “arboriform” to describe the branching pattern of…

This is a macro exercise in Rhino, showing that Rhino is pretty much capable of automating some cool text effects. Just copy and paste the below code into the command bar of the Rhino, or open the macro editor by typing macro edit, then paste it there and press play. You’ll enter any string when prompted, then the macro handles the rest of the process. You can play with the parameters by changing the numeric values you see in the…

Again, we revisited the seamless patterns exercise this semester. This is one of the main exercises of architectural geometry class. We expected to improve students reasoning on generative patterning while they explain their processes step by step. The key element of this exercise is the usage of compass and ruler constructions. However, we didn’t keep this rule limiting their creativity too much. In this activity, we tasked students with developing a personalized method to create custom tessellations, drawing inspiration from “Islamic patterns“….

This is the Grasshopper definition that generates a tetrahedral helix (also called as Boerdijk-Coxeter helix) but in a funny way. This geometry is also a solution for tangent spheres. I generated the helix using Anemone components for recursion and gave it a little bit of responsiveness. I don’t know if it depends on the speed of your CPU but if it is slow enough, you’ll see the snake game of tetrahedral helix as it is driven by your input from a…

Here are some of the student works from this year’s Computation-based Basic Design Studio, centered around the captivating theme of Metamorphosis. Throughout the course, we tasked the students with pushing the boundaries of their creativity and innovation and encouraged them to construct designs that transcend conventional limitations and embody the essence of shapeshifting systematic wholes. The metamorphosis concept catalyzed their artistic exploration. Then, urged them to delve deep into the realm of design possibilities. A pivotal aspect of this studio…

We are back! Here are some Revit components I’ve created for a project. These and other cool downloads can be found at revitcity.com

This is an interesting material project of this year’s computation-based Basic Design II studio. Students experienced a well-known structural system tensegrity, composed of cables, joint details, and aluminum sticks. Although their overall macro form had serious problems, the exploratory process of this group was very successful. *Students: Deniz Ağaoğlu, Fatma Sezgin, Serkan Ateş, Aysel Abasova, Kardelen Kıroğlu, Sedat Tolga Kalcıoğlu, İlayda Yörük, Nikol Sergici, Kıvılcım Dişli, Uğur Polat

Here is another computation-based Basic Design II final project. It is made of paper tubes, joined angular by nuts and bolts in order to give the desired form. This group had serious problems with project development and exploration, but anyway they managed to finish this inspirational prototype. *Students: Abdullah Selim Buldu, Ecem Aksoy, Lachyn Tuliyeva, Neda Khorshidi, Selenay Geyik, Sevgi Yücel

It is the geometry of Mantı components, that enable quick cooking for its ingredients (usually meat) but also is a structurally stable form. I’m excited to see this transformation as a structural capacity, half folding, and bending behavior of these shells. Two years ago, one of the final projects of our computation-based Basic Design studio experimented with similar forms to see how a relatively weak surface material could be transformed into a structurally better one. I don’t know if this similarity…