Generative Scripting in Skopje

Daniel — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:33:10 +0000

From 30.05 to 04.06 I gave a quick workshop about Generative Scripting at the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, Macedonia. There were around 25 students, and I gave them the basics of the basics concerning scripting in Maya, using Python and MEL. As a task, they had to propose something simple for the Airport Tempelhof, in which they could apply given tools, and self-made scripts dealing with parametric design or urbanism. As a beginner’s workshop, the results are more about testing and experimenting with new tools, than serious architectural propositions.

One thing I have been noticing after teaching Python+Maya for the last 2 years, is that maybe this is not the right tool for beginners. Contrary to tools such as Processing, or Grasshopper, scripting with Python in Maya has a very long and steep learning curve. You can produce amazing things, but only after a certain amount of time and investment, which in a 4-day workshop is a bit hard. I was pleased, though, with the final results, and I guess the students were quite excited about all the possibilities these new tools bring to your design practice.

Group Eight (Taseva Tanja, Efremovski Martin, Stilinovic Mladen)

Group H_F_H (Lilitkin Sanja, Pejoski Martin, Nikolovski Ivan)

Group H_F_H

Group myGroup (Dojchinoska Dobrica, Strezovska Borka, Arsov Nikolche)

Group Lulala (Nadica Bogoevska, Jasmina Abdul, Petrovski Aleksandar)

Group Lulala

Group Seven (Tonka Anodova, Radica Ugrova, Ivana Stefanovska)

Group Asymptote (Zlatko Lazarovski, Marta Ilievska, Aleksandar Bocevski)

The whole group in the final day

Workshop poster

parametric workshop / htwk leipzig

Daniel — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:04:02 +0000

From 26th to 29th of June, 2009, I participated in the 1st Parametric Workshop at the HTWK in Leipzig. It united more than 40 people from all over the world to play around with parametric design using Grasshopper and fabrication techniques.

It was my first “deep” experience with Grasshopper, as I had already messed up with the plugin before, but just superficially. This time, we chose the most difficult topic (dealing with movable components), and I dived into it to produce my first full-working definition.

We did a surface composed by small components which open and close in a system, allowing several regulations of openings. Here are some images of the process:

Grasshopper definition: complete mess

Detail from the GH definition: basic parameters to control the components' variation along the surface

Final surface

Final surface: detail

Open state: positive shearing

Semi-open state: positive shearing

Closed state: positive shearing

Components ready to be assembled

Single component

Component: no shearing

Component: negative shearing

Component: positive shearing

First prototype: folding elements

Putting the assembled components into place

Finalizing the structure

Detail

Final surface: note the variation on the components

This project was realized together with Dorothea von Rotberg and Alex Mitxelena, under the supervision, among others, from Luis Fraguada (LaN), Dimitrie Stefanescu, Ioulietta Zindrou, Maite Bravo and Verena Vogler (all from Iaac in Barcelona).

Resources:

GH definition file: just keep in mind it is my first ever GH definition!
Base .3dm file: you basically need two surfaces, one planar where the components will be applied to, and another one defining the thickness of the components

so parametric... » Workshops

Generative Scripting in Skopje

parametric workshop / htwk leipzig