Santiago Calatrava, a celebrated Spanish architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and painter, is renowned worldwide for his groundbreaking and futuristic designs, which frequently fuse architecture with engineering and artistry. Among his many notable works is the door design at Ernsting Warehouse in Coesfeld, Germany, constructed in 1985. I call this Calatrava Door because this design showcases Calatrava’s keen sense of functionality and geometry, with aluminum slats arranged vertically and connected along a curved line using hinges. When you raise the frame, these slats pivot away from the facade’s plane, transforming into an elegant cantilevered roof. I made this Grasshopper tool years ago but updated it regularly over time. You can apply any hinge curve and explore the opening motion. The fun part of the code was to implement the ancient Euclidean construction techniques to simulate the folding.

This Grasshopper definition generates the variations of the Calatrava Door and animates the opening and closing motions. The user-controlled inputs are the number of vertical slats, thickness, the hinge curve (as a Graph mapper component), and the opening factor, a Number Slider. The resulting objects are planar Rhino surfaces. Therefore, it creates the essential data for the production of a potential structure on any scale. I made the definition with the help of the native Grasshopper components in Rhinoceros 7. So, you don’t need to install any add-on to be able to use it.

You can rebuild the definition by looking at the diagram above. However, if you want to support this website by downloading my Grasshopper file; would you consider being my Patreon? My Patreon page includes the working Grasshopper file for the Calatrava Door and more. Thank you.