ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL
Architecture Design Studio: Air Semester 1, 2012 Architecture Journal Carl Madsen 357577
01 rhino3d personal state of the art 02 grasshopper case for innovation 03 the gateway 04 cut definitions 05 a study in moire 06 realising a model ~
WEBINARS
RHINO 3D
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Rhino 3d (coupled with the Grasshopper plugin, although unused in the week 1 tutorials) uses a system of point called N.U.R.B.S. - (Non-Uniform Rational Basis Spline) an alternative to the mass amounts of points that go into modelling a curve in, say, SketchUp. Based on my previous experiences with computer design software such as AutoCAD, SketchUp and the Macromedia and Adobe suites, the interface was relatively easy to comprehend and follow in the videos. Although being used to the SketchUp orbiting tool, I found myself miscliking when trying to pan and orbit in the perspective view quite often, but seems to be something that I will get used to over time. The application seems to be very focused on the technical aspects of digital 3D modelling, as seen by the simultaneous projections of the model, and how seemingly powerful the application is.
I found the webinars embedded on the LMS very easy to follow, and the addition of their presenter’s Rhino files was a great help in fully understanding the different methods of creating surfaces. It really felt like a progression of learning, and although a lot of the information given was very basic stuff within the program, it was still nice to watch it be done, and then do it myself. A great aspect of the online video tutorials was the ability to really learn at my own pace; to re-watch the same section a couple times if I didn’t fully understand what was happening in the video. Overall, I am looking forward to working more with Rhino; it seems like a powerful program that I will be using a lot during the rest of my degree, and likely my career.
PERSONAL
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CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
STATE OF THE ART
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Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain is not only state of the art in its sleek design, but also its functions as allowed by its architecture. The long complex, made of pure white concrete and shattered tiling, is devoted to both cultural and scientific dissemination. Classically seperate, this structured city is host to the multifunctional space of both. Its immense size provides a landmark to the city, relating with the water in a way of emergence; that the building was always there, but simply arose at the time of construction. The planetarium section of the complex, the pointed oval-shaped building (left), focuses on the windows pointing towards the sky, using thin, long supports to direct the eye’s attention to where it is pointing, using the building’s openings to create a directon.
HESSING SHOWROOM
STATE OF THE ART
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The luxury automobile showroom in Utrecht, the Netherlands, designed by ONL Oosterhui-Lénárd is a perfect example of how form can be developed from a function and a place using methods made available by computational architecting. Situated along the A2 highway, the extremely sleek design of the structure reflects the speed of its location, running along it in a streamlined fashion. It shows itself as iconic to the highway, presenting the qualities of the road it travels along. Similarly, its function as an automobile showroom has large influence on the form of the building. Much like a luxury car, the showroom looks fast, aerodynamic and powerful. It even slightly resembles a car, with the ‘open’ central cockpit representing the sleek top of the expensive and modern cars it displays inside. Using parametric scripting, ONL effectively described the building in two details informed by the 3D model: one describing the highway façade, and the other the acoustic barrier which makes up the opposite side of the structure. Reference points were extracted from the surfaces, visualizing all the elements of the exterior in simple tables, which are then run through CNC production machines to create all the parts of the building.