This is a simple trick that shows the utilization of the “surface split” component in Grasshopper. It is used for detecting the inner regions of any given two-dimensional linework. Thus, it resembles the hatch boundary detection of AutoCAD and similar software. There is no built-in hatch component in Grasshopper. But maybe you can use this as a starting point if you want to develop it. The definition starts with drawing a circle around a point large enough. The size of…

Today’s tip is about two-dimensional curve-point calculations. It is very handy to use “closest point” components in Grasshopper. You can calculate distances and directions between curves, surfaces, and points. Then, place point objects in relation to the proximity of another object. However, there is no “farthest point” implemented yet. I tried to calculate the farthest point from a curve. First, I tried to translate the curve in a fashion that would result in the opposite of the closest point calculation….

It has been a while since I didn’t post any patterns. Here is a beautiful one from the iconic design studio of William Huff. Crossover Parquet Deformation is a single-axis, line-based deformation algorithm, constructed on a regular quadrangular hyperframe, designed by Richard Lane at the Basic Design studio of William Huff in 1963. It presents two different parquet deformation sequences linked together. Thus, the designer created a transition between the borders and inner cross-shapes gradually. This transition is visually smooth…

In the 14th century, Albrecht Dürer basically seems to capture some of the fundamentals of contemporary parametric design. Apart from other thinkers of his age, he refused to accept one single definition of beauty, based on proportions. His famous physiognomical studies reflected very early examples of referential systems that generate diverse design outputs, even a half-century before Descartes published the coordinate system and four centuries before D’Arcy draw the formal studies on species. I don’t know if he is mentioned…

Recently, I returned to old fashion RhinoScripts in order to recapture its idea and functionalities again. After almost 10 years, this is my first experiment on creating a custom function that draws hexagonal grids. I tried to implement a fast process for it, however, there could be much faster ones. This script focuses on using functions, variables, and object arrays. I’ll continue to make more of these simple exercises and revisit some of the older studies on this blog page…

After becoming a ready-made component in Grasshopper, the Delaunay triangulation lost its popularity quickly. It used to be a nice problem of computational geometry for designers obsessed with scripting.  Last month, Benay reminded me of the method of circle checking. She showed her Rhinoscript that creates circles from point triplets and checks if a point is inside or not. Today I studied this in Grasshopper to see if I can handle the required point combinations quickly. However, my first attempt…

This is another brave group of students. They studied one of the most interesting materials in this year’s Basic Design studio. They tested the structural capacities and nearly all possibilities of thin Bamboo sticks. Unfortunately, they lost most of the prototypes, and one of them was a beautiful structural tripod. In the final assembly, they managed to span the required distance by attaching bamboo sticks using plastic fasteners. Below are some of the photos from the final day. The sequence…

Kündekâri is an old woodworking technique, composed of interlocking parts without any glue or nail. It is primarily used in wooden doors and minbers inside Mosques. The interlocking system makes the whole structure very durable. I tried to model this technique using the Voronoi pattern, naming it Voronoi Kündekâri. Below you see a typical example of Kündekâri pieces and the resulting pattern. The interesting part of the Grasshopper model is to define the tongue-and-groove detail. It is similar to a…

The material system experienced here is an extreme example of our final projects in İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture, first-year Basic Design studio. Students studied fiberglass as their core material and they searched for weeks to find a proper way to expose this material’s potential into a spanning structure. They tried lots of different components, basically using molds to give shape to glass fibers. However, their final decision was to use this material without a component logic. They used…

Below is another cult article written by Robert Aish in 2005; Design has been described as making inspire decisions with incomplete information. True, we may use prior knowledge, we may even think we understand the causalites involved, but what really matters is exploration: of new forms, of new materials, and speculation about the response to the resulting effects. Essentially, this exploration has its own dynamics, involving intuition and spontaneity, and without which there is no design. But of course we…