I am still trying to find the simplest solution to some geometric definitions. This is why I called this Grasshopper definition “Basic Grid Deformation”. Here you see the Curve Proximity (CrvProx) component in use. This component calculated the shortest distance between two curves. I think the underpinnings of this component are very interesting. I hope I can code it in Python one day. In order to see the result more […]

Here is another basic exercise in Grasshopper. This exercise “Point Waves” creates wave-like deformations on the grids of points. The major function of the definition is to calculate the distances from every point of a grid to an attractor point, with the help of Distance (Dist). Then it sorts them from the smallest to the largest (= closest to farthest) with the Sort List (Sort) component. This component takes and […]

This python code proves how much effort it takes to create a simple hexagonal tessellation. There are, of course, much easier and faster methods than this. But here you see a code that introduces students to Rhino Python. Using this code, a new Rhino command can be generated, and for the first time in Rhino, we can have a command that creates a hexagonal grid. I followed this tutorial to […]

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 […]

This is the third and the last project of the Infections workshop conducted at YTU this week. The conceptual Framework is developed by Betül Dönmez (DEU). In this project, the host body is infected by high fever and pressure and changes its solid phase into plasma. The solid molecules of the existing body transform to become plasmatic. This substance can react to various movements around it. When someone comes close to the […]

This is another final project of the three-day workshop at YTU, named Infections. A conceptual framework is developed by Bahar Aybudak (METU) and Zeynep Gür (ITU). The cellular forms come together to set the existing wall (host body). The wall represents the body structure, in which in case of any infection, various challenges could be seen in parallel with the immune system. The struggle with the mentioned infection is observed through […]

This is one of the three final projects of the Infections workshop at YTU. The conceptual framework is developed by Begüm Aktaş (YTU) and Merve Özhan (BAU). According to them; the existing host body is a 16×11 unit glass brick wall, which is constructed to separate the corridor of the faculty and to create semi-private spaces for various activities. In this project, the host body is considered the dead tissue […]

The series of workshops named “gridal infection”, or “infections” in short, explore the multiplicity of pattern deformation in a pedagogical context. It aims to encourage design students to manage an associative process of design, composed of short-term constructive assignments. Students are expected to develop an understanding of contemporary computational design techniques regarding a connection between abstraction and conceptualization. It reflects an open discussion of the abstract types and methods of potential […]

I finally installed Firefly, it immediately powers Grasshopper up with beautifully smart components, even if you don’t have Arduino it is still very useful. If you want to give it a try, first you have to install a small tool free from www.reactivision.com in order to send data to Firefly. After that, you may download and install firefly from their website, www.fireflyexperiments.com. It was the real-time inputs, my first interest. […]

Is it possible to model a two-way parquet deformation using only native components of Grasshopper? In this definition, I limited myself to 10 of them. Parquet deformations are a very interesting and pedagogical topic to teach some of the basics of contemporary parametric modeling. This post explains a minimal parquet deformations algorithm in Grasshopper. However, this has its own limitations. You will see that the definition generates the attractor graph […]

It all started with my new passion for origami tessellations, not much of origami, but the tessellation part. I was too lazy to fold it physically, nor model them using an engine such as Kangaroo. That would also be very unnecessary (and yes, very boring) to simulate a folding effort on the computer unless we lose our connection with the real world. Instead, I tried to look at a much […]

After playing with vector fields in 2d (here) it was quite easy to create a 3d surface deformation. Here is my first experiment on a regular triangular grid’s three-dimensional behavior within a vector space, that includes a point charge of varying z coordinates. That makes field lines escape to a bounding box, instead of a bounding rectangle. Again, you may play with force decay, the number of samples, and the […]

Back to the basics. I finally had time to test the vector fields components in Grasshopper. It was a couple of updates ago, a new tool group emerged in the vector tab, introducing different types of vector fields to users. Then, these fields could be merged to form more complex effects. However, I created a very simple example of how we can use those components to distort a system (such […]

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 […]

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 […]

This is the basic definition of one point attractor on a grid of points. [GHX: 0.8.0066] Here, the fundamentals of data tree matching can be studied. A hexagonal grid is exploded into points and new polygons are created there. Instead of a standard point distance relation to polygon size, this time the distance factor affects the rotational angle of these polygons. Although the structure of data trees is getting complicated, this has no […]

That was about six months ago, our study for a design competition required a spatial allocation algorithm. An office building with a rectangular plot and a strict functional requirement forced me to the good old Voronoi diagrams, subdividing a surface. Here is the definition file: [GHX: 0.8.0066]. However, there were other design parameters such as the sunlight and orientations of each functional cell. Combining a couple of graph components helped me […]

In order to start creating recursive algorithms in Grasshopper, I finally managed to run Hoopsnake, a special component developed by Yiannis Chatzikonstantinou. This will help me develop parametric models that include loops. The fundamental experiment here shows a surface subdivision based on iterations. We should define a starting object or data, an operation to be repeated, and a limit that will tell Hoopsnake to stop looping. In this condition, this […]

This was an interesting challenge for me to find out if an architect can use Visual Programming Languages (VPL’s) also for graphical purposes? Now, I would say “not exactly” because this definition took much time than I expected. The aim was to create an algorithm for a business card design that has variable outputs. Each card should be different, but without using any randomization. This is achieved with a definition […]