Grasshopper Model

This is a grasshopper model that I made loosely based off the exterior randomised geometry of the Water Cube in Beijing, China:

For this model, I was trying to replicate a similar randomized pattern of cells or blocks within the exterior. I was able to link a few variables together which allowed the control of the randomization factor, the number of 'cells' as well as a number slider allowing for the shuffling/generation of a new skin.

6 More Sources

 Aspects of Design


1. Phaeno Science Center - Wolfsburg, Germany
(Zaha Hadid)


"Zaha Hadid pours her ideas of fluid architecture into concrete and glass at the cinematic PHAENO SCIENCE CENTER in Wolfsburg, Germany"

Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Science Center exemplifies her notions of 'fluid architecture' throughout the entirety of the building, from the sweeping front yard to the rolling ground planes and to the elevation of the main bulk of the building opening up views through the site.

"I didn't want it to occupy the ground," - instead it rests on 10 concrete 'cones' which curve and cant structural elements of different sizes that seem to warp the building where they meet it.

 

2.  Water Cube (Beijing National Aquatics Center) - Beijing, China

( PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI and Arup) 

"In contrast to the Swiss firm's circular red bird's nest, the pool...would be a 'very green' blue cube, with an insulated cavity as a thermal buffer. 'Architecture has to perform as an ecosystem.'"

The 'Water Cube' located in Beijing, China, possess a rather complex 'climate control' design utilizing ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) throughout the design allowing for the cavity to warm the interior during winters of -3 degrees, but also evacuating excess heat when the cavity reaches average temperatures of 25 degrees.

3. BMW Toronto - Don Valley Parkway, Toronto
(Quadrangle Architects Ltd)

"Designed by local firm Quadrangle Architects, BMW Toronto is the flagship retail showroom for a company that fully understands what gives this brand its cool-factor: the cars. Taking maximum advantage of its unique exposure to the highway, the building mixes sophistication and spectacle as passing motorists are tempted with titillating displays of new cars showcased four storeys above the street. "

"...white-framed display cases prompt passers-by to wonder if they are indeed real. And while the mass is clad in blue-tinted glass, the pillboxes feature an ultra-clear lead free glass...from the inside, the cars are ghosted against a screen of frosted glass. By day the sober glass facade appears darkly translucent and quietly slips beyond the edges of the building. At night, the glass wall disappears as the interior comes aglow..."

Technical Aspects of Complex Geometry


1.  The HybGrid : FROM FORM GENERATION TO FORM ADAPTATION - Diversifying digital architecture
(Yu-Tung Liu)

 "The aim of this project has been designing a system/process able to generate multiple and non-predetermined shapes that are modifiable with regard to different spatial requirements. Our purpose has been achieving formal adaptability and not formal identity (ideal form). For this purpose it is necessary to design a physical system (phenotype) able to articulate; but it is also important to design a  process (genotype) linking the multiple spatial necessities to their multiple formalizations.

 

2.  Metropol Parasol - La Encamacion square, Seville, Spain(Jurgen Mayer-Hermann)  

Metropol Parasol is a complete wooden building consisting of an undulating, fluid, almost organic exterior design composing of interweaving waffle-like wooden panels rising from the concrete base. The panels are strategically/architecturally placed in such a way as to form structural canopies and walkways below the parasols. The structure itself serves as a unique organic public urban space within the crowded and dense medieval city center of Seville.

 

3.  Swiss Re Headquarters - Riverside Three, 22 Hester Road, London SW11 4AN

(Foster and Partners)

 "The futuristic skyscraper in London's Financial District was soon given an entirely appropriate nickname: the Gherkin - entirely understandable in view of the particular design of the building. The structure is also the city's first-ever ecological multi-storey building. "

Assignment 2 (experimental model)

Here's a grasshopper model I made while experimenting during assignment 2

For this model, I was actually trying to recreate the exterior element seen in the Art Gallery Of Ontario (by Gehry Partners), and tried doing so using a bi-arc node. Instead I found that you could make very fluid and complex geometry's by pairing that node up with a series of XYZ points, and cross referencing them all so every point has individual bi-arc's going to all the other points. There were 16 points for one end and 16 for the other giving a total of 256 bi-arc lines in the geometry.

Lexicon

3 Personally Influential Images of Architecture

Design Museum Holon

Architect: Ron Arad

Holon, Israel

Mediacite

Architect: Ron Arad

Boulevard Raymond Poincaré 7  4020 Liege, Belgium

Helix Hotel

Leeser Architects

Zayed Bay, Abu Dhabi

6 Sources

Aspects of Design


1.  Kingsdale School -  Alleyn Park Dulwich, London, Southwark SE21 8SQ, United Kingom (de Rijke Marsh Morgan Ltd)


Conceptual clarity and innovative construction methods are key features of the design. The conversion of Kingsdale School, a style icon of the late fifties, has received particular attention. Following its refurbishment and extension by drmm, it is now once more a shining example of a modern school building. The design focused on the 'content' rather than the form, with drmm looking for correlations between particular materials, contexts and uses in order to generate extraordinary architecture.

2. Bahen Center for Information Technology -  40 George Street, Toronto, Ontario
 (Diamond + Schmitt Architects Inc)

A modest smooth textured, ivory clay brick exterior housing an equally minimal interior of dark wood screens, stucco walls, frosted green glass and polished concrete columns.

"While sustainable design is generally accepted as the right thing to do, its value is often considered only in terms of quantitative returns such as energy performance or payback period. However, a more holistic approach suggests that sustainability must encompass many threads, both building and civic, working together to realise a qualitative common good and not just individual measurable segments. in this light, a building's sustainability should therefore be understood both for its technological solutions as well as its ability to positively contribute to the city as a whole. "

3.  Prince Consort Restaurant, Royal Albert Hall - Kensington Gore London, SW7 2AP, United Kingdom
(Softroom)


The restaurant was designed to be innovative, diverse and of high-quality. Its design was revolved around an aspect of being accessible in the broadest sense - to consist of spaces that are both engaging and stimulating to as wide an audience as possible.

Technical Aspects of Complex Geometry


1. Art Gallery of Ontario -  317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario
(Gehry Partners, LLP)


"While the project bears few immediate resemblances to the signature billowing forms that have become his calling card, the design is certainly not wanting for architectural bravura. Stretching over 180 meters along the entire Dundas Street façade and rising 20 metres above street level will be a swooping Douglas fir and glass scrim that slants and twists over its full course and then breaks free from itself at the ends. Behind the transparent visor, a linear sculpture gallery will double as the main circulation route. On the south side of the gallery a tinted glass and titanium tower will rise to overlook Grange Park and will house a hosting facility, galleries for contemporary art, and a panoramic dining hall. While a square box seems the last thing you would expect, a set of spiralling stairs bears the Gehry signature and twists its way through the sky-lit roof to the third and fourth floor contemporary galleries.

2.  Sharp Centre for Design Ontario College of Art and Design - 100 McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario
(Robbie/Young + Wright Architects in joint venture with Alsop Architects)



"...a massive two-storey slab perched some 27 metres above the street on 12 slender stilts that look more like colourful crayons. In actuality, the main support for the building comes from the jet-black monolithic elevator core rising from the heart of the original brick building, with most of the crayons being more of a whimsical reference to the arts. Wrapping the entire slab equally on all sides is a metal skin painted with a black and white dot matrix pattern interspersed with a seemingly random pattern of punched openings. By day, the white hulk looms overhead, while at night, ultraviolet lighting gives the slab an ephemeral presence from afar."

3. MAS | Museum On the River - Hanzestedenplaats 1, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
(Neutelings Riedijk Architects)



"Every storey of the tower has been rotated a quarter turn, creating a gigantic spiral staircase. This spiral space, in which a façade of corrugated glass is inserted, forms a public city gallery. The spiral route leading up to the top of the tower narrates a story about the harbour and its inhabitants; it is finished with a gigantic curtain of corrugated glass. Thus it allows visitors to enter a museum hall on every level and reflect on the history of the 'dead city', while on the way up mind-blowing views unfold above the active city."