WFC Shangai is a design exercise in our first-year Design Computing class introduced by Onur Yüce Gün. This exercise emphasizes both analytical thinking and associative geometry and aims to utilize boolean operations as solid and void references in creating forms. We asked students to develop variations of this building. In order to discuss this formation in class, I studied a simple algorithm to test variations in real-time. The grasshopper definition […]

Here are some student works about the parametric wall exercise I briefly explained here along with a Grasshopper implementation of the core wall definition. Students are expected to design their own brick and compose it in a way that generates a seamless wall surface. Ömer Kirazoğlu Osman Can Sözüneri Seda Öznal (slightly out of requirement but very interesting) Adnan Faysal Altunbozar Özgüç Bertuğ Çapunaman

This is a first-year design computing problem we studied last month. It is a simple parametric wall exercise introduced by Mete Tüneri. Creating a simple definition of a building brick to be placed on a straight path, and then manipulating the path to reform different variations of the brick. This aims to introduce a fundamental concept of associativity in contemporary architectural geometry and design computing. Students are then encouraged to […]

This is a solid-void (or boolean) exercise for first-year students. It is initially introduced by Onur Yüce Gün as an in-class exercise but later became a design problem also. Before getting into the parametric wall and eventually muqarnas exercises, this small but effective assignment helps students understand some of the fundamental concepts such as associativity, solid/void relationships, and component-based design compositions in three dimensions. Here is the initial object we […]

This was last week’s Basic Design II exercise at İstanbul Bilgi University, a captivating challenge that pushed students to explore the realm of solid and void compositions using pre-defined components. The objective was to construct intricate structures that intertwine solids and voids in visually striking ways. Recognizing that these compositions may be intricate and difficult to comprehend solely through visual outputs. The students were encouraged to prepare Rhino models as […]

This was last year, Salih Küçüktuna had organized a one-day exercise at the first-year Basic Design studio. It was a quite successful event, both emphasizing the fundamentals of contemporary design ideas and also being very pedagogical regarding the method. We asked students to bring blank regular business cards and staples to the studio. The main idea was to design a component and multiply it to create a structure that spans […]

This is the second year we are experimenting with a beautiful exercise with the Computation-based Basic Design 1 students at İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture. The exercise is based on the ideas of Benay Gürsoy and Şebnem Yalınay, who are among the pioneers of this studio. The exercise is about the design and production of new year’s lanterns to be lit in the campus garden. Here are a few […]

These are examples of 2.5D exercises in the design geometry course in my freshman year of architecture. We asked students to create extruded or referenced solids referenced from their previous exercise of pattern deformations, (examples are here and here). We also started to inject some of the most used concepts of design computing here, by perceiving each tessellation cell as the variation of a predefined algorithm, such as a relationship […]

In this exercise, we asked students to develop a method to produce custom tessellations. This is based on the analysis of what is called “Islamic patterns”. We have discussed Eric Brough‘s famous book “Islamic Geometric Patterns”, regarding geometric relationships and linear connectivities via underlying tessellations (such as regular square and hexagonal). Thus, this geometry and drawing exercise is called “Seamless Patterns” in the Design Geometry course at İstanbul Bilgi University. […]

Last week, the first-year architectural geometry course was about pattern deformations. Students are expected to familiarize themselves with 2d drawing, transformation, and control point editing commands while trying to design a deformation. After studying regular and semi-regular tessellations of the plane, they are expected to develop reasoning on the rule-based and iterative processes. This also constructed an underpinning for Basic Design‘s “Metamorphosis” study, where they have discussed more conceptual frameworks […]

The Truncated Icosahedron (5,6,6) is an Archimedean Solid we often recognize as the iconic soccer ball. This geometric structure, also affectionately known as the “Buckyball” in honor of the visionary architect Buckminster Fuller, has gained significant popularity and recognition both within the realms of mathematics and everyday life. It is composed of twelve regular pentagons and twenty regular hexagons, meticulously arranged to achieve a harmonious balance. This symmetrical nature makes […]

İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture Basic Design II Spring 2012 undergraduate studio* group 6 includes both a geometric exploration and material research. They examined various formal alternatives, using wooden sticks and plastic tie-wrap connectors. After these experiments, they constructed a 1:1 material system spanning 4 meters in length and 2 meters in height, using 2.5km of wooden sticks and 18.000 tie wraps. This was an enormous effort to create […]

İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture Basic Design II Spring 2012 undergraduate studio* group 8’s project is a metal surface construction. Group of first year design students were capable of designing, modeling, fabricating and assembling the structure with a good precision. After physical prototypes of the proposed spanning structure, they further experimented in rhinoceros and sent faces to plasma cutting and bending process. Finally, they assembled the faces with nails […]

Below is the final project of group 3 at İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture Basic Design II Spring 2012 undergraduate studio*. First photo shows students’ efforts on generating  formal variations. They studied much on this folding components and attaching them together to create surfaces. Their final surface spans nearly 2.5 meters in height. Forex is used as main material and they nailed them from faces.  The different sizes, shapes […]

This is the final project of group 2 at İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture Basic Design II Spring 2012 undergraduate studio*. 1:1 material system is constructed by two layers of tesselfations, triangular and hexagonal. They studied much for the connection detail and elaborated the structure to maintain stasis within a dynamic pose. They have used a Grasshopper definition (described here) to label and measure all of 800 rods into […]

Digging out with Grasshopper, Rhinoscript, and Paneling Tools, everything seems to be more and more automated and fast. However my colleagues Mete, Benay and Elif reminded me that, we can always do much with those high-end architectural geometry tools, but we still have to understand and follow the roots, probably best described by the “manual ways”. Sometimes using these methods would be much more intuitive as they are SLOW enough […]

Today, we’ve finished first phase, the introduction to dataflow management in visual programming environments; and conducted “well defined” part of the mid-term examination. First two questions were designed to test technical skills of data matching, geometric evaluation. First one was a simple algorithm that calculates the area of ANY triangle in real-time. Tricky part of this problem was to research and find ways of calculating area and implementing it in […]

Here are some results of fourth homework. An animate design sketch of a roof structure. Yağız, Deniz and Sacha created animated results; Derya and Sacha proposed conventional approaches to create “openings” by animating geometries. However, that does not meet the requirement of structural (and logical) intentions of the design problem. Unless some very high-tech materials were introduced to design. On the other hand, Yağız tried to create a structure that […]

After a reviewing a short story of digital architecture from Branko Kolarevic, we looked at the roots of the theory and the concepts derived from it such as digital fabrication, building information modeling and parametric modeling. After a short brief, we’ve discussed about the final projects. Next week, we’ll start studying final projects and start to look at individual problems developed from them. Final submissions will highly be related with […]

Today, we’ve studied fundamentals of component-based design methods. Using curves and surfaces as starting points, we’ve experienced ways of translating those entities via design criteria based on our purposes. First, a curve is used to construct a leaf structure. We’ve experienced dispatching data lists and combining them back together. Subdividing curves into points created further entities such as vectors and planes. We used those entities as inputs of regular drawing […]