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 […]

Here is the winning team of this year’s mid-term jury competition in the first-year Basic Design studio at İstanbul Bilgi University. The challenge they undertook was called “Void by Subtraction.” Initially, the students engaged in a series of short-term exercises exploring solid and void relationships. Alongside the studio sessions, they honed their digital modeling skills through Architectural Geometry courses. Their task was to create a contoured structure within a restricted […]

Together with Fulya Akipek and Mehmet Ali Altın, we’re conducting a 4-day workshop at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, between the 1 and 4th of May. We’ll be focusing on Grasshopper + Firefly + RhinoNest (the casual trio), in order to introduce some of the basic concepts of parametric design to students. Materyal dünya, sayısal ortamın olanaklarıyla entegre edildiğinde beklenmedik performanslar açığa çıkabilir. Parametrik modelleme teknikleri, tasarımcıya tekil ürünün ötesinde olasılık setlerinin […]

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 […]

Here is one of the student’s works from this semester’s parametric modeling elective course. We refer the first couple of hours in molding of concrete as its “alive” phase. During this phase, due to various reasons concrete sweats, respires and in a way contains an inner circulation of forces. This phase ends when concrete dries and hardens, creating a kind of its fossil. Air bubbles are frozen inside and some even are seeable from on […]

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 […]

Here are some before and after photos of our first-year Computation-based Basic Design student works. In the beginning, they were all full of life, nevertheless, after a couple of seasons, things started to change slowly. Although they look old and deformed, they are still standing. Reason: Extending the phase space of material performance, unfolding the impossibility of permanence… Or just snow load. It used to be quite durable until recently. Reason: […]

The final countdown has started until the jury of this semester’s Basic Design studio. Everyone is excited to see the products of this year’s architecture, interior design, and industrial design students, while they are trying to set a higher standard for the exercise.  They’ll use both digital and physical media to unfold their design intentions about a systematic whole. Below is the current situation of our group together with Fulya […]

This year’s “Lanterns” assignment was nothing short of spectacular. It left both the students and faculty in awe of the creative brilliance displayed. Despite facing constraints in terms of time and experience, the Basic Design students surpassed all expectations. They crafted mesmerizing compositions of polyhedra and intricate unrolled surfaces. Their ability to conceptualize and execute such remarkable lantern designs can be attributed to the valuable skills they honed in their […]

Basic Design I exercise called “Cut and Fold: Deviation” explores diversity within relationships and material behavior. It is initially introduced by Salih Küçüktuna as a simple but effective exercise platform. Below are some students’ works on this one-week exercise. The term “deviation” has many uses in a range of fields from medicine to sociology. However, it is frequently used in statistics with an interesting evocation to design computing: In mathematics […]

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 […]

Below are some of the student works from the 4th-week exercise Bits and Pieces of this semester’s Basic Design studio. The gestalt notion of “figure-ground phenomenon” refers to the characteristic organization of perception into a figure that ‘stands out’ against an undifferentiated background. What is figural at any one moment depends on patterns of sensory stimulation. And on the momentary interests of the perceiver. Thus, the figure-ground relationship is an […]

This was the initial example of image processing in our Parametric Modeling class. I saw this design on Maxthreads Architectural Design’s website (especially here). Hand-drawn and digital diagrams can also be digitized and used in order to describe certain parameters for design formation. Such algorithms would similarly use the Image Sampler Component of Grasshopper. In the algorithm below, image data is used to capture black pixels as attractors of a Voronoi subdivision. […]

This was my first parametric patterning study we conducted together with Birgül Çolakoğlu at Yıldız Technical University in 2008. It was based on the pattern exercises we’ve experienced with BOT Graduate Students as a preliminary study within a Computational Design Studio. Later, the CNC fabrications were exhibited at İstanbul Bilgi University Digital Design Symposium. The exercise was about analyzing and reconstructing regular İslamic Patterns via MaxScript. After fundamental instructions about the […]

ARCH 362 COURSE BRIEF (2013) Design computing reflects a focal shift from the singular construction of objects into the relational nature of revealing diversity. Algorithms are mainstream interfaces for the explication of geometric relationships, extending techniques required for such revealing. This course introduces some ways of managing diversity while reasoning about sequential and concurrent; absolute and relational; ordered and chaotic. Students are expected to be familiar with fundamentals of Rhino3D, […]

This is another brave group of students. They studied one of the most interesting materials in this year’s Basic Design studio. They tested the structural capacities and nearly all possibilities of thin Bamboo sticks. Unfortunately, they lost most of the prototypes, and one of them was a beautiful structural tripod. In the final assembly, they managed to span the required distance by attaching bamboo sticks using plastic fasteners. Below are […]

The material system experienced here is an extreme example of our final projects in İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture, first-year Basic Design studio. Students studied fiberglass as their core material and they searched for weeks to find a proper way to expose this material’s potential into a spanning structure. They tried lots of different components, basically using molds to give shape to glass fibers. However, their final decision was […]

Here is the “hose” group of the İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture Basic Design project. Although they were challenged with a nearly impossible mission, trying to make a structural system out of hoses, they simply did it well. After a tremendous effort on the possible combinations of hoses and wooden sticks, they found sophisticated components, utilizing the positive potentials of both materials. This year, we allowed them to develop […]

Below is one of the fourteen final projects of the freshman year Basic Design studio in İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture. The component is made of folded aluminum sheets. Students insist that this is the most optimal solution to the problem of polyhedra in a component-based structure. They experimented with this shape a lot and tried their best to make one that has similar triangular faces on different sides, […]