I’ve seen beautiful examples of similar compositions made using vector field components in Grasshopper. I just tried to make my own animate field lines to see how they float over force dynamics. In essence, these compositions could also be done using regular vector components but the field components make life much easier by merging different forces together rather quickly. Here is my Grasshopper definition (be careful it may slow the […]

In Design Computing class, we have discussed how the parametric wall study (here) can be implemented to describe regular curved surfaces such as domes. This led us to well-known design compositions named Muqarnas. Previously we have studied how a parametric muqarnas definition could be in Grasshopper (here). After a couple of weeks of study, students started to capture the idea of generating seamless surfaces out of a few components. Of […]

The “Re_Flex Patterning” workshop will be conducted at İzzet Baysal University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture between 6-8th May 2013. The workshop is led by Tuğrul Yazar and Fulya Akipek, from the İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture. Integrating digital media with the material world reveals emergent performances. Parametric modeling techniques encourage designers to study more on the envelopes of potentials instead of singular artifacts. Working with these envelopes tells […]

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 […]

Today’s design computing class was about fractals. In Rhino, writing macro statements are very easy to learn as it just mimics your behaviors in a sequential text. There are a few syntactic rules that we should know. First, you should watch the command line carefully to understand the steps of your design process. Each command in Rhino requires different inputs from the user. In macro, you may enter these values […]

One of the cult texts in Shape Grammars theory is Stiny‘s Chinese Ice-ray Lattices Grammars. Although it is full of technical terms, it represents an analysis of a working algorithm. We can directly transfer that from the behavior of an artist. “One can imagine a Chinese artisan, summoned to a building site. He brings tools and implements and a collection of finely finished sticks. Then, he begins his design by […]

One of the main requirements of being successful in the field of digital design seems to have nice high-tech background images. Usually, it contains different kinds of nebula-like grids, plastic-explicit, and/or combinations of curves-surfaces-and-numbers, burnt by a couple of photoshop filters. If you have the right background, this means you are ready for a workshop, a book, or a presentation. (just joking) However, I love these, and cannot stand more than […]

Maxscipt can be used to automate specific modeling tasks in a sequential-parametric way. This example, developed in 2005 shows an example of that. It creates various table designs by polygon modeling operations and asks the user various parameters. Maxscript file is here, [MS File] you can download, test and alter it however you want (last tested in Max Design 2011 and works). Below is the interface of the script; There are […]

This month became a retrospective for me. This was my first animation, prepared for the CAAD Graduate course of Ahmet Turan Köksal in 2002. It was a funny inspiration from SDF-1 of Robotech. The terminal model is my graduation project at YTU Faculty of Architecture in 2001. It was a terminal bus project for İstanbul modeled in AutocadR14. I mirrored it with a ground plane to create the space station. Other spaceships and […]

Below is a part of Heidegger’s famous text, “The Question Concerning Technology”, on Techne, Epistinio, Poiesis; Revealing “… We are questioning concerning technology, and we have arrived now at Aletheia, at revealing. What has the essence of technology to do with revealing? The answer: everything. For every bringing-forth is grounded in revealing. Bringing forth, indeed, gathers within itself the four modes of occasioning – causality – and rules them throughout. […]

This elegant and straightforward tiling geometry is credited to Dominican priest Sebastien Truchet in 1704 and was documented in a book titled “Memoir sur les Combinasions” (A Memoir on Combinations). After delving into the renowned Truchet Patterns in 2013, I revisited their three-dimensional tiling counterparts today. This served as a valuable exercise in geometry during my previous Design Geometry course. I believe it enhances one’s proficiency in mastering the technical […]

After explaining the beautiful parquet deformations of William Huff, Douglas Hofstadter states his opinions about the algorithmic potentials of those patterns. Although it was 30 years ago, Hofstadter points out a fundamental discussion related to today’s parametric design tools; …for a machine to make simple variants of a given design, it must possess an algorithm for making that design which has explicit parameters; those parameters are then modifiable, as with […]

In 2007, we conducted a computational design studio in YTU / CADU with Birgül Çolakoğlu. Below is the brief of the paper published at METU JFA Vol24 issue 2 titled “An Innovative Design Education Approach: Computational Design Teaching For Architecture”. We were dealing with how new technologies are affecting the design cycle. Rhinoscript is used as an educational tool, and various short exercises are conducted with it. After 6 years, […]

This presentation was completed in 2007, as a part of a research project titled “Analytical Visuals in Architectural Design Studio”. We decided to use Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye as our actor, trying lots of different visual effects and techniques to understand and express its fundamental design principles. Below are some of the elements we used in the project: some renders and panoramas along with a small video experiment. Modeling was […]