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B.1 RESEARCH FIELDS
//STRIPS+FOLDING Strips and folding are the fundamentals of origami and has inspired interesting forms and patterns that can be further developed through repititive series of the similar process to increase the geometrical complexity. Strips are more so the element that needs force acting on it Folding - to inform a design outcome. The process of designing through folding frees the designer from any preconceptions of final form and also abolishes any exisiting architectonic images as the eye is just focused on what the next step is, being curious of the outcome. This process is linked to the subject aim where computational processes take over the role to compute the final form, while the designer inputs parameters and curiously waits for the outcome as well. Apart from that, folding is about creating links between the steps that derives the outcome design - in a way it is similar to a ‘grasshopper logic’ itself. It gives way to accidental results - unintended - and propels design in a way that unintentional outcomes could be the undiscovered path into new realms of styles1. 1
Sofia Vyzoviti, Folding Architecture: Spatial, Structural and Organizational Diagrams (BIS, 2003), p.2.
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Seroussi Pavillion B I O T H I N G Alisa Andrasek
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B.2
CASE STUDY
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The core element in the design of the Seroussi Pavillion are the self-modifying patterns derived from the vectors of electro-magnetic fields emitted from selective points on the site. It is a very intelligent algorithmic process in which its form-finding was dependent on the hilly site, whereby the strips emitted from the point charge is finding for the ground to land on. As such the shape is influenced mainly by the repulsions and attractions of the electro-magnetic fields from each point charge connecting lines into an organic floral pattern. The lines presented from this algorithm allows possibilities of various form of folding/strips panellings in Grasshopper that can alter the character to be more complex and potentially reach its optimal setting in terms of design tailored to site.
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B.2 CASE STUDY 01 ITERATIONS SPECIES 1
SPECIES 2
SPECIES 3
SPECIES 4
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ITERATIONS
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r 2.8 curve divide 20
r 2.8 curve divide 40
r 0.2 curve divide 40
SPIN FIELD INTRODUCTION
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r 0.2 curve divide 5
strength 20
SPECIES 2
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SPECIES 1
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CURVE DIVIDE/RADIUS SIZE
r 0.2 curve divide 20
strength 10
strength 5 //3DVIEW
multiplication 5//3DVIEW
extrude Z 1.0//3DVIEW
Variable Pipe 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.8
LB Triangle Panels B u3|v3
LB Triangle Panels C u4|v7
TWO CHARGE RELATIONSHIP
Polygon | hexagons curve divide 10
SPECIES 4
CURVE EXTRUSION/PANEL
SPECIES 3
Lunchbox Quad Panels u3 |v5
Bezier Graph | Default Point Charge, Strength 5 r 0.8
Bezier Graph | Altered 1.0 Point Charge, Strength 5 r 2.8
Bezier Graph | Altered 2.0 Point + Spin Field, Strength 5 r 2.8
Bezier Graph | Altered 3.0 Spin Field, Strength 5 r 2.8
Bezier Graph | Altered 4.0 Spin Field, Strength 5 r 5.5
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ANALYSIS OF RESULTS / SELECTED ITERATIONS \
SPECIES 1. 5
This iteration was chosen amongst the the series of Species 1 as I felt the density of lines shows great potential in being a form of shading pavilion whilst being very delicate and light to complement the surrounding environment. It resembles fibres forming lobes branching outwards of the point charge just like the delicate leaves on CERES site branching out of the core barks. Potentially being able to fabricate with weaving of high tension nylon threads that pulls and form the lobe sea-shell form.
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Iterations was an important process of design in which it helped me to further understand what each Grasshopper component does and how I can actually alter forms through them to obtain my desired visualization that feeds the design brief best. The main criterias set out in my selections were aimed to choose iterations that was able to provide adequate shading intentions without compromising aesthetics as well as being non-intrusive to the site to maintain the openness of the area.
SPECIES 2 . 2
This iteration presents a further design interest in making a pavillion that produces the desire of exploration. The use of spin fields to alter the way pathways through the pavillion work causes a total different way of using or flowing through this system.
This is a more cohesive form as it can potentially correlate existing structures in the CERES site as point charges that react together to generate this form. It also shows a nature of windy-ness through aerial view, a picture of turbulence going on that reflects the wind forces that the state of Victoria experiences itself. Going back to its environmental existence.
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SPECIES 3 . 5 This iteration creates a new excitement as it now releases the lines off the ground level, making the form reflect the natural trees that exist around the CERES site. Adding diamond panels using the Weaverbird plugin allows the lines to generate leaf-like forms. The use of point charges that has a radius of causing interactions between lines emitted from the multiple points allow the overall connection of structure where movement can be fluid through the multiple “trees�, making it an interesting feature whereby people are actually flowing with nature, walking through the pseudo-natural form.
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SPECIES 4 . 4 This form draws most connection to me as it relates a lot to the CERES site. Walking through the site it gave me a sense of togetherness, where the community actually share their gardening/farming efforts and it is really a communal and family atmosphere going on there. Reflecting with using this Grasshopper logic I tried to alter the line directions in a way that it reflects a thread weaving ball where it represents “unity� abstractly. I wanted to produce a form where it coincides with all the selection criterias put out as well as present this site-specific tone in terms of formal expression. Potentially for shading, point attractors could be used to pull threads to areas to increase the opacity of the particular area.
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B.3
CASE STUDY
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UNDER STRESS
//marcfornes theverymany Marc Fornes translates the fluidity and effortless travels of data over the computation world in the modern day with this beautiful installation. The form itself shows how the static orthogonal and simplistic institute building actually owns a spirit of creativity and unlimited flow of information that goes on between faculties within that building itself. The installation as according to him actually enhances the identity of that institution in portraying their intricacy and complexity that they face dealing with day to day technological innovations in the computational world but still holds an elegance to their workflow. The ornamentations portrayed through the joineries in the strip connections with rivets adds on to the richness of the form, a planar strip that could conform to the organic curves using Kangaroo Physics to actually cause materials to realize the visualization of beautiful smooth forms. The choice of material being reflective also brings life to the surrounding as it plays with light rays bouncing off the plain white surfaces to produce distorted and re-produced images projected on the surface of the installation, making it a joyous sight though actually being ultimately simple itself materially. This project relates really well with our design brief as we can potentially use the glow materials provided by Professor David to incorporate the notion of computational architecture in correlation to art in producing an optimal beauty. 14
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STEP 1 STEP 2
STEP 3
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The first step was mainly identifying the opening ends of the installation connected to the walls and labelling them as X-points on the Rhino plane.
Thirdly, the mesh were BOOLEANUNION-ed to eliminate any internal mesh faces so that it can be unified as one whole mesh in Grasshopper.
The c open iden using DEC NAK diffe mesh nake bake of th alter
Lines were then connected orthogonally to create a visual expression of how the structure was oriented in their directions.
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The second step was actually choosing which primitive mesh component would be ideal to manipulate the form when Kangaroo Physics was processing to generate similarly smooth form-finding. MeshBox was the best as it can be welded to multiple other modules to form the shape along the lines with similar mesh faces in comparison to MeshCylinders.
Where the X-points were marked, mesh faces were deleted to create the hole openings as seen in the installation after the mesh has been exploded, and then re-joined to reunify the mesh.
STEP 4
control points around the n ends of the mesh were ntified in Grasshopper by g LIST ITEM, CONSTRUCT MESH and KED VERTICES to find the erences between all the h vertices on faces and the ed vertices and listed to be ed so that the orientations hese control points can be red.
UNDER STRESS
//R E V E R S E
ENGINEERING
STEP 5
STEP 6
The mesh component is then connected to Weaverbird’s Mesh Edges to extract the lines on mesh faces to be connected to the “Connection” input of SpringsFromLine from the Kangaroo plugin. The Spring force component allows the form-finding to occur as it contracts the material to reach a point of ZERO pulled from the control points.
While the Kangaroo Timer is still turned-on, the baked control points are pulled and adjusted as well as rotated to closely imitate the form as in the “Under Stress” installation by Marc Fornes, and the output mesh is resultant.
This force is connected to Kangaroo Physics to simulate a “real-time” mesh contraction.
The output mesh is runned under Weaverbird’s Mesh Edges again to obtain the outline curves of the strip faces which are Offset and Lofted to generate the final smooth panel surface in the FINAL FORM/
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Iterations
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2
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SPECIES 1 //CULL CONTROL POINTS
Original
Cull Pattern: True, True, False
Cull Pattern: T
SPECIES 2
//CONTROL POINTS XYZ MOVEMENT dendrites
elongated dendrites
stretc
SPECIES 3
//WEAVERBIRD’S PATTERNING SEQUENCE mesh edge revealed
wb inner polygons subdivisions
wb Sier subdivi
SPECIES 4 //WEAVERBIRD’S
wb constant quads split mesh thicken: 0.50
wb inner polygons + mesh window wb split p mesh thicken: 0.30 mesh thic
SPECIES 5 //EXTRUDE Z + GEOMETRY ALTER
wb Catmull-Clark’s + wb Sierpinski’s + window Z-Vector Extrude: 1.0
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wb Catmull-Clark’s + window wb CatmullZ-Vector Extrude: 1.0 Circle (Rang Attractor Po Z-Vector Ext
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True, False, True
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Cull Pattern: True, False, False
ched holes
constrict holes
rpinski triangles isions
wb split triangles subdivisions
polygons cken: 0.30
wb split triangles mesh thicken: 0.70
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Cull Pattern: False , False, False
widen base
wb Catmull-Clark’s subdivisions
wb Catmull-Clark’s mesh thicken: 0.70
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Cull Pattern: True, False, False, True
widen canopy combine: constrict base stretched canopy
wb constant quads split subdivisions
wb inner polygon + wb split triangles + mesh window mesh thicken: 0.50
-Clark’s + DeMesh wb Catmull-Clark’s + DeMesh wb Catmull-Clark’s + DeMesh wb Catmull-Clark’s + DeMesh ge Domain: 0.1-0.5) Polygons: 6 sides Polygons: 4 sides Facet Dome oint towards Naked Vertices Z-Vector Extrude: 1.0 Z-Vector Extrude: 1.0 trude: 1.0
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ANALYSIS OF RESULTS / SELECTED ITERATIONS \ This iteration was chosen due to its organic nature of behaving like the roots of a mangrove tree, natural to swampy areas which possess similar traits to plants along the creeks. This form offers shaded areas and a very open space which would be an incredible sight looking right above when under the pavillion. This form also shows strong potential as the roots of the form could find themselves on the existing poles on the CERES site, moving control points to alter the form further to react to the site conditions.
As for the top exposed holes, they could find themselves on adjacent structures to hole up the form itself being materialized by tensile membranes. This process of form-finding causes the design to be cohesive to the existing environment as well as creating a “growth� in the area with a new complementing flora.
SPECIES 2 . 5
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S Species 3.5 reflects a similar base to Species 2.5 but has a larger canopy top, which is an improvement to the previous form as the current control points are now “linked� to potential sidestructures creating this beautiful complex shading system that can have altered pulling points to aim at shading from northern Sun or evening western Sun angles. The use of CatmullClark’s component on Weaverbird plugin allows the surface to be flexible to materiality whether being panelled with hexagons/triangulation to form this smooth form or maintained with tensile membranes to have an even smoother form.
SPECIES 3 . 5
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Species 5.1 portrays an intricate view of the powerful Weaverbird plugin tool in patterning an existing form. This combination of mesh polygon subdivisions with the mesh window component allows the quick computation of complex geometries being patterned all over the mesh vertices. There were two ways of computing this surfaces, mesh thickening or by extruding along the Z-vector to produce panels with physical thickness. This panels can be fabricated individually and joined together with other modules through wire meshes that produce the form.
SPECIES 5 . 1 22
With the use of attractor points, this form and panels can potentially be an amazing adaptable structure to the CERES environment with openness and shading being algorithmically computed to have larger panels in areas that require more shading. With the panel pattern betwen a combination of 3 triangles, it has a large range of permutations in the ways the opening of panels can be to allow sunlight in.
Species 5.5 the use of cubes extruded from 4-sided polygons could potentially be bounding boxes for mini-tensile membrane modules of the larger form. A series of these modules could react to wind, sun angles and also being economical material-wise. Using attractor curves, these modules could take on an interesting patterning with the use of the glow materials that would cause glow emitted into different directions based on the attractors and result in a better transitional architecture feature in which the night glow will totally dissipate the existing form.
SPECIES 5 . 5
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B.5
PROTOTYPING
HINGE METHOD ONE This first method of joineries that our group prototyped was using hinge over both triangulated panels that have tight joints leaving closely-knitted slits. This method posed problems as it was difficult to rotate the panels as we did not regard the thickness of material before laser-cutting them.
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HINGE METHOD TWO When the joineries of panels have a slightly larger gap the panels were more flexible to rotate about the hinge to ensure the connection of other panels can conform to the designed curves we computed in Grasshopper. In addition to that, glow vinyl tapes were stick onto the panels covering certain hexagon perforations as well as at the edges, so that in the dark they would light up to produce a different form from its day-use.
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GLOW MATERIAL The glow in the dark diminishes the panel forms and even perforations are not to be seen. This is a way of manipulating visual experiences during the night, potentially creating an avenue for computational design process to use ornamentations of glow strips instead of physical structures to produce a special outcome. Special thanks to Prof. David Mainwaring for providing the phosphorescent materials in this experimental prototyping process.
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CERES
SITE STUDY B.5 PROPOSAL
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BRIEF INTERPRETATION The site we had on CERES was an area that constitute of several main activities that we could explicitly observe while visiting there over a few hours from 3pm to about 5pm. During this period of time, we see a mix of crowd in the area namely parents observing their children playing about the playground as well as some soccer and chasing going on at the open area. There were also smaller groups having picnics in the pavillion and on the small mosaic tables - observed to be probably the community gardeners or farmers having a break in the area.
This space of mingle allowed us to understand the main purpose of our design apart from providing physical shading to it. It goes way beyond that, integrating our parameters of designs to produce a form that potentially increases the activity around the area, facilitate more activities as well as enhance the existing experiences the users currently have.
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B.5 SITE ANALYSIS
From the Sun-angle study, we observed that the main parts of our pavillion that needed shading was the western-evening sun a 1500HRS as well as taking note of northern noon Sun. These two areas are where we intent to use image samplers, Ladybug or point attractors as included parameters to provide intricate shading that is not apparent in the overall structure to have a sense of singularity in the patterning form. The two main viewing galleries were the classroom up the hill, as well as the existing pavillion on ground level in which we intend to allow a full view of our project for user understanding and also for patrons to admire the full artistic-architectural feature during the night when it glows.
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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
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The arcs were the drivers to the form in this case. They replaced Kangaroo Physics in the initial phase of design as it is a quicker tool to form lofts as ways to sketch out multiple forms to suit our research area.
Rebuilding the lofted surface with more control points, the surface appear more organic and smoother. The increase in control points also allow greater flexibility in adjusting the form to suit shading criterias namely toilets + sun.
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OBTAINING ARCS
CONTROL POINTS
Lunchbox plugin was used to generate the panelling on the surface form, and triangulated panels were chosen over quads as it would be easier to fabricate and be able to mimic the smooth form more accurately in visuals.
PANEL GEOMETRY
Inspired by the stomatal guard cells in the delicate leaves on site, the perforations were a scaled up interpretation of using natural systems to produce shading mechanisms with attractor points to optimze this method.
PERF O RATIONS
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DAY VIEW C E R E S
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NIGHT VIEW C E R E S
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B.7 LEARNING OUTCOMES In the approximately 5 weeks process going through PART B, it is a much more intense course of Grasshopper understanding and it really did drill me and push me to adapt and learn the components more quickly. This was due to the pressure of having a group design presentation that requires all members to be on par in Grasshopper proficiency to be able to convey as well as understand each other’s ideas to achieve a common design goal. It was rather challenging but not regretful as this process of case studies helped me explore various forms of logics and ways that I could actually recreate my own logic and patch in different series of components to enhance the form-finding of the design I intend.
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Through Case Study 2.0, it actually allowed me to use Grasshopper to produce logics that resembles forms in my visualization. It is really satisfying going through several links of components, using different methods to actually find the deriviative of the chosen case study project. Achieving the final form that actually has direct resemblance to the actual project does bring you to a new level of understanding and confidence to take on PART C with more available design idea inputs rather than being a handicaped designer.
B.8 APPENDIX //ALGORITHMIC SKETHCES
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