Parametric Brickwork

by Tuğrul Yazar | January 7, 2013 00:21

This is the continuation of the brick wall study. But this time I am starting with fundamental and easy steps. You may remember this parametric brickwork from the famous “Programmed Wall[1]” of ETH and Gramazio Kohler Research, and the Mullberry House[2] facade of SHOP architects. First, I studied the easiest possible way to place boxes on a surface;

However, this was not the correct layout. But worst of all, some bricks unrealistically collided. I tried to develop complex brick layouts several times, then decided to go back to the simple gaps. The second attempt created this definition;

Much better. This also brought interesting possibilities if you play with the “gap” parameter and brick sizes. In Grasshopper[3], the whole challenge of the definition lies in how the bricks will be organized, and the layout. Here is a fast solution, I saw from various websites, defining a standard running layout with half-length holes. These gaps are very important not because it makes the wall lighter. Because it is much easier to calculate brick positions without any concern about their collision.

The final version also included a kind of warning system. Red bricks are risky ones and more likely they will fall. I couldn’t tell Grasshopper which brick will fall in any layout but managed to tell it the following: “Calculate total distances from every centroid of bricks, then sort them in a fashion that bricks that lie farthest to its neighbors will be red”. Also, the final version included a small part of my breaststroke surface equation (here) to create a waving reference surface.

You can see the dataflow diagram of this Grasshopper definition above. You can click on it to enlarge it. If you want to download and use my Grasshopper file; would you consider being my Patreon? Here is the link to my Patreon page[5] including the working Grasshopper file for the Parametric Brickwork, and many more.

Source URL: https://www.designcoding.net/parametric-brickwork/

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