I have been conducting a series of in-class exercises in the freshmen year architectural geometry course, focusing on Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, introductory fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, modeling, and unrolling polyhedra using Rhinoceros software. Junior architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and enthusiasts from other disciplines can benefit from these concise drawing exercises. Thus, I will publish two exercises every week on my blog and other […]

This video series showcases various in-class exercises I conducted in a freshman-year architectural geometry course. Using Rhinoceros software, we explore Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, fundamental fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, and modeling techniques, including unrolling polyhedra. These short drawing exercises are also beneficial for junior-level architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and enthusiasts from other disciplines. So, I will be publishing two exercises each week on my […]

In this video series, I present a variety of in-class exercises from my first-year architectural geometry course. Using Rhinoceros software, we delve into Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, introductory fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, modeling, and unrolling polyhedra. These concise drawing exercises benefit junior architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and enthusiasts from other disciplines. So, I’ll be sharing two exercises each week on my blog and other […]

In this video series, I demonstrate in-class exercises from the architectural geometry course I teach first-year students. Using Rhinoceros software, we explore Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, introductory fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, modeling, and unrolling polyhedra. These short drawing exercises benefit junior architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and others interested in related disciplines. Thus, I’ll be posting two exercises weekly on my blog and other platforms. […]

I have been conducting a series of in-class exercises in the freshmen year architectural geometry course, focusing on Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, introductory fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, modeling, and unrolling polyhedra using Rhinoceros software. Junior architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and enthusiasts from other disciplines can benefit from these concise drawing exercises. I will try to publish two exercises every week on my blog and […]

This video series showcases various in-class exercises I conducted in a freshman-year architectural geometry course. Using Rhinoceros software, we explore Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation commands, fundamental fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, modeling techniques, and unrolling polyhedra. These short drawing exercises are also beneficial for junior-level architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and enthusiasts from other disciplines. So, I will publish two weekly exercises on my blog and other […]

Fields is a native group of components available since the very early version of Grasshopper. In today’s Design Computing class, we studied it again with the first-year design students. I studied these interesting and beautiful shapes earlier here, here, here, and here. The one you see below is a short in-class exercise about vector fields. The exercise aims to show the Grasshopper’s capabilities in form-finding studies via Field Lines. The […]

While digging through the lecture archive, I found this video I made in 2017. We introduce Platonic solids and Archimedean solids in the Design Geometry course at Istanbul Bilgi University. This video shows how we can create an Archimedean solid, the Truncated Tetrahedron, by folding it from a flat sheet.While doing this, I intersected the spheres by using the relations between the side lengths of the solid, and I calculated […]

Here is one of the exercises I tested with a few students in Architectural Geometry. The exercise is about creating Escher-like patterns. It is an introductory topic on the designerly utilization of regular tessellations. We use square, hexagonal, or triangular tessellations as underlying structures of complex patterns. Below are some of the student works from this exercise. I think the black-and-white coloring helps in terms of reducing the requirements. Although […]

Below is a simple tutorial class we studied in Rhino in 2015 and 2016. The exercise is called “A Low-Poly Habitat”. The aim is to create simple polygon models by analyzing the overall geometric topology of an animal body. First-year design students attended the exercise and they are encouraged to create these models using blueprints from www. They used simple commands such as point, line, and surface from 3 or […]

After this tutorial, we are still working on the basic ways of making contouring easier in Grasshopper. This is the updated version of the 2-year-old contouring definition in Grasshopper, with some additional functionality. It produces a flat and properly numbered output for each section. However, it does not include optimized nesting to reduce material use. Here is the Grasshopper definition (don’t left click, use right click and “save” option) [GHX: 0.9.0076] and the […]

Gaudi-like columns are generated as part of the “boolean” classes of Design Computing. The most inspiring, beautiful, and ugly variations are often done by boolean intersection, as this operation is the surprising one of the three brothers. While the class deals with the concept of emergence once again via solid and void relationships, constructive solid modeling techniques are introduced. Although it is widely used as a spatial analysis approach in […]

Classical folding methods were subjects to be tested and studied in this semester’s design geometry classes. This has been very useful in introducing first-year students to 3d euclidean constructions and using physical objects as references to a digital model. Groups of students studied different folding methods and made both physical and digital models. Two of these methods were dominant in the class however, one of them was the variations of Miura-Ori, […]

Again, we revisited the seamless patterns exercise this semester. This is one of the main exercises of architectural geometry class. We expected to improve students reasoning on generative patterning while they explain their processes step by step. The key element of this exercise is the usage of compass and ruler constructions. However, we didn’t keep this rule limiting their creativity too much. In this activity, we tasked students with developing a personalized […]

It seems that our first-year students of architecture, interior design, and industrial design take Rhino’s macro functionality very seriously. This encourages us to study algorithmic techniques more and more in the freshman year Design Computing class. Below are some of the results of this week’s assignment. They explicated the modeling process of their prototiles into macro codes, ready to be molded. Zeynep Dutipek developed the macro to reconstruct her prototile with different parameters. She […]

Here are two macros that automate some of the classical structural styles in today’s architectural geometry. They could be developed more to include joint details, however. It is a relaxing experience to study macros when the process doesn’t have algorithmic expressions (such as recursion, iteration, or conditionals). It is today’s subject in the first-year design computing course at İBU. The first one requires at least two curves already present in order […]

Design Computing classes conducted a “voluntary” assignment; a “contouring” fabrication, that outputs physical prototypes of the previous parametric wall assignment. They worked very well with the corrugated cardboard in fact and extended the simple contouring exercise in Rhinoceros into a design study of patterning and transparency. It seems that corrugated cardboard is a perfect material to study the shift from digital to the material. Below are some of the student works […]

While preparing the Geometry yearbook, I picked these four patterns from the 4th week’s assignment, “Seamless Patterns”. I still love to see how these patterns are generated by students with very limited knowledge of computers and geometry. There are other posts about this assignment here and here. Below are four from this semester; Ceren Atik Zeynep Dutipek Ceren Atik Meltem Bayrak

Unlike the classical Pattern Deformations assignment discussed here and here, this time we asked Design Geometry students in 2014 to explore deformations by using referential systems as a secondary space. We wanted them to create variations on a regular pattern only by deforming its underpinning lattice. Below are three examples of this alternative assignment. I’m thinking about improving this exercise to three dimensions, seems possible to implement by using the cage […]

Below is some student works from this year’s Architectural Geometry / Pattern Deformations assignment. Students developed their own pattern deformation sequences mostly on regular tessellations. Based on the classical Parquet Deformation exercise, we tried to implement a rule-based approach in order to explore emergent patterns. The exercise seems to reveal endless improvisation potential. The exercise requires students to design a pattern deformation on a 28cm by 28cm area. It should […]