I had some fun some time ago with plexiglass, a laser printer, rhino, and a very limited and buggy script that made “ribs” out of a surface.

The results were nice, so I decided to share:

Here’s the bugged up script (it’s quite useless, but people may find inspiration where I didn’t):

Option Explicit
‘

‘Script written by Dimitrie Stefanescu
‘Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
‘№ 5:28:35 AMW ednesday, May 21, 2008

Call Main()
Sub Main()

Dim surf : surf = Rhino.GetObject(”sel surf “, 8, True)

Dim detailLevel : detailLevel = Rhino.GetInteger(”det lev “, 10, 5, 50)
Dim matTh : matTh = Rhino.GetReal(”mat thickness “, .4, .1, 2)
Dim hght : hght = Rhino.GetReal(”rib height “, 1.5,  matTh, 10)

Dim uDomain : uDomain = Rhino.SurfaceDomain(surf, 0)
Dim uStep : uStep = (uDomain(1) - uDomain(0))/detailLevel

Dim vDomain : vDomain = Rhino.SurfaceDomain(surf, 1)
Dim vStep : vStep = (vDomain(1) - vDomain(0))/detailLevel

Call rhino.enableredraw(False)

Dim pts : pts = Array()
ReDim pts(detailLevel)

Dim i, j, k : k = -1
Dim rib

‘
‘U direction
‘

For i=uDomain(0) To uDomain(1) Step uStep
For j=vDomain(0) To vDomain(1) Step vStep
k = k + 1
ReDim Preserve pts(k)
pts(k) = Rhino.EvaluateSurface(surf, Array(i, j))
Next
rib = addRib(pts, matTh, hght)
k = -1
Next

‘
‘V direction
‘

‘k = -1
‘For j=uDomain(0) To uDomain(1) Step uStep
‘    For i=vDomain(0) To vDomain(1) Step vStep
‘        k = k + 1
‘        ReDim Preserve pts(k)
‘        pts(k) = Rhino.EvaluateSurface(surf, Array(i, j))
‘    Next
‘    rib = addRib(pts, matTh, hght)
‘    k = -1
‘Next

Call rhino.enableredraw(True)

End Sub

Function addRib(pts, matThickness, height)

Dim crv, crvPlane, norm, ppp, art, crvOff, arrCrvs, ribb, perpFrame, fff, dirV, extSurf

crv = Rhino.AddInterpCurve(pts)

crvPlane = Rhino.CurvePlane(crv)

If Not isArray(crvPlane) Then
Call rhino.print(”Surface not ribbable by this script. SORRY!”)
End If

norm = Rhino.CurveNormal(crv)
ppp = Rhino.AddPlaneSurface(crvPlane, 1, 1)
art = Rhino.SurfacePoints(ppp)

crvOff = Rhino.OffsetCurve(crv, art(1) , height , norm)
arrCrvs = Array(crv, crvOff(0))

ribb = Rhino.AddEdgeSrf(arrCrvs)

perpFrame = Rhino.CurvePerpFrame(crv, 0)
fff = Rhino.AddPlaneSurface(perpFrame, matThickness, matThickness)
art = Rhino.SurfacePoints(fff)
dirV = Rhino.AddLine(art(0), art(2))

extSurf = Rhino.ExtrudeSurface(ribb, dirV)

Call Rhino.DeleteObjects(Array(fff, ppp, dirV, ribb))

addRib = extSurf
End Function

As I promised, I hand out some of the scripts I’ve written in the course of the latest project.

Massive unroll Script:

Select as many surfaces as you like and then unroll each one of them.

Download it.

Adaptive fenestration script:

An interesting script that cuts holes in a surface based on the relation with a given attractor(point). I used it to generate a porous membrane for my latest project.

Download it.

Here are some other potentially super-bugged scripts:

Faceting. - Does the same as the adaptive fenestration script only it also “facets” the seed surface.

Ribs. - My attempt (quite sucesefull) at writing a honeycomb script.

home/house: an architectural organism

The house must not be seen as an opaque shell, but as an osmotic membrane.

The built environment intersects with the living environment.

Create a formal and functional interdependence between the architectural object (building) and the subjective object (home).

So you can see what porosity led to.

And here are some pictures of the model:

Balsa wood and plexiglass, nicely cut by CO2 laser.

First step of the project is here.

(1of2)

First set of drawings from a single-family home project for school.

Getting a grip on the surroundings:

After an initial study of the surroundings, several ways of tackling this project have been bouncing up and down in my head. I won’t go through all the urban analysis of the area, suffice to say that taking into account the general characteristics (building regulations, urban tissue, the relation between buildings and their respective lots) and specific characteristics (how much sun do I get and from where? how much privacy? what role does vegetation play?) I was able to identify some “core variables” around which I could start working.

The site is a corner site. This must be reflected in the construction.

I  can’t directly attack the corner due to the constraint pushed by the general characteristic mentioned above - the relation between buildings and their respective lots - they all are free-standing separate objects.

Sunlight. The south is blocked by high-rise (10 stories) buildings. I must get the most out of what reaches the site while still offering a decent level of privacy (imagine 20 apartments looking down into your house).

The program was a classical single-family home (living room, kitchen, dining, 3 bedrooms, study/library, garage). I also wanted to open up the spaces inside towards the garden and the trees (which act as a natural privacy shield) surrounding the lot.

Air must come in and then out (get as much natural ventilation as possible).

Porosity sprang to mind. What if I can create a living, adaptive porous block that acts as a retreat and yet still opens up to let in fresh air, sunlight, perspective and, most important, a family? I investigated a little bit of fractals, went through to fractal architecture and, most important early-on in the design process, (Steven Holl’s) porosity architecture.

Initial concept (working towards porosity): *note: this is not how the final project looks like. the img below is just a concept sketch.

So, all talk and no scripts? Wait, no!

More to come in the next post. I promise you adaptive (in relation to an attractor/point) porosity on a given surface and a massive unroll script.

Here’s a nifty script to create a menger sponge in Rhino:

Option Explicit

‘
‘Script written by Dimitrie Stefanescu
‘Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
‘

Call sponge()

Sub sponge()
‘
‘Set var “menger” to 0 if you want just a plain divide
‘else if “menger” is 1 you will get a menger sponge
‘
Dim menger : menger = 1

Dim objs : objs = Rhino.GetObjects(”select cubes to divide:”, 16, True, True)
Dim obj
Dim scale : scale = 1/3

For Each obj In objs
Dim faces : faces = Rhino.ExplodePolysurfaces(obj)
Dim points : points = Rhino.SurfacePoints(faces(0))
Dim orig : orig = points(0)
Dim L : L = Rhino.Distance(points(0), points(1))
Dim ll : ll = L /3
Dim nobj : nobj = Rhino.ScaleObject(obj, orig, Array(scale, scale, scale))
Dim i, j, k
Dim loc

Call rhino.EnableRedraw(False)

For i = 0 To 2 Step 1
For j = 0 To 2 Step 1
For k = 0 To 2 Step 1
If menger = 1 Then
If Not((i=1 And j=1) Or (j=1 And k=1) Or (i=1 And k=1)) Then
loc = Array(orig(0) + ll * i, orig(1) + ll * j, orig(2) + ll * k)
Call Rhino.CopyObject(nobj, orig, loc)
End If
End If
Next

Next
Next

Call rhino.DeleteObjects(faces)
Next

Call rhino.EnableRedraw(True)

End Sub

We started out on this by analyzing the area and its surroundings from the point of view of circulation (more on how we did this). How would people move around? The conclusions from this study where integrated later on in the project.

Next we took on the task of (re)creating the landscape - modify the terrain in a functional yet unobtrusive way. Formal concepts revolved around radiolaria, foam, water, waves etc. Luckily we had a working circle packing applet in processing ready (which was used for this). From here on, it was quite straightforward: expand the circles to smooth spherical caps and smartly transform them into urban furniture.

The interstitial space that remained between the”bubbles” is packed with wood alongside the routes we discovered to be ideal using the circulation study. The rest is English lawn pure green smartly-cut grass.

This project is a collaboration between Veronica and me.

Tools we used include:
Processing was VERY important early on in the design process - we used it for the circulation study as well as for the early circle packing experiments (size, density, spread etc).

Rhino and RhinoScript: RhinoScript is great - we used it extensively (create spherical caps based on the generating circle’s radius, expand circles, contract circles, import circles which the processing applet generated, etc.). Rhino was used for everything else - 3D modelling and, of course, making valid STL files for the 3D printer and also exporting the right things for the laser printer.

Laser cutting was done here (as always).

3D wax models were kindly made for us by mazarom (at the moment the only 3D printing service in Bucharest). If you need a complicated model, don’t hesitate to contact them!

Plotting the final presentation was done at studio spot. They don’t have a webiste…

To have found someone in a 50km radius that is sharing the same interest in architecture. You can find him Here.

Things evolve:

Veronica and me (Dimitrie). This could have looked better, but alas, we had to make a 1m x 1.3m model in the same time.

How things are going on:

Work done for the current school project by Veronica and me. This is just a snapshot, stay tuned for more. I’ve written 2 pretty interesting scripts for this one… so stay tuned.

 or swarm intelligence?

Using processing to make a circulation study in a public area. It’s for the current school project. More details later.

I’ve used Shiffman’s boids sketch as a start, and gradually started building up with some attractors, Point Obstacles (which are attractors with negative pull basically), and Linear Obstacles (which were a little bit tricky, but this helped out a lot). Also very inspirational were kokkugia’s experiments.

When it’s nice and propper, I will  add some details and upload the code/sketch.