Fluid as Fashion

Just thought this was beautiful:

The making of fashion for walls (although it has nudity, watch it full screen if you can – the video is small):

A Rhinoceros with Fins on Stairs

I was asked today to do a short tutorial on a little known yet valuable command in Rhino called Fin.

Fin, according to the help manual, “Creates a surface by extruding a curve on a surface, normal to the surface.” The practical example below will use the fin command to create stair a simple staircase based on bent geometry.

Problem: This technique will not work with an applied UV curve nor geometry which has been oriented to a predefined surface; in both instances the threads on the staircase become skewed. When offsetting a polyline which has been through bend, etc. the offset will not be fully realized, so offset/loft wont work either.

Also note that this is not for wild, topological stairs (which may or may never be used/built/whatever), but is for using very controlled geometries to create stairs which someone on a cane might use.

1. Create staircase geometry (lines). JOIN them all together as one line.

2. Manipulate by the ROTATE/BEND/TWIST commands to desired state.

3. Use interpolated curves along the top edge of the stairs, so that the curve your creating follows the curve of staircase. Copy this new curve vertically above and below the stair geometry. Connect these two new lines with single straight line. SWEEP2 the two curves and the straight line to create a surface parallel but larger than the new staircase geometry.

4. FIN the staircase curved polyline. Select the surface created in step 3 as the surface as the “base surface.”

5. Erase/Delete the construction curves and surfaces to complete staircase.

Also know that you can build stairs using Grasshopper, if that’s your thing.

Leave questions in the comments-

A Short Criticism of RealFlow

Just as fitting a round peg through a square hole can yield obstacles, using particle simulation software to model architectural environments can sometimes prove aggravating. I have a few criticisms:

1. The OBJ export always leaves holes in the mesh (same with the LWO export). Even after using extremely fine polygon sizes and using the fill all mesh holes script in Rhino, the model still has holes. Needless to say, you can’t send it through for rapid prototyping…

2. When you insert a mesh, you can’t turn off the mesh for further particle creation: every subsequent scene exports the corresponding mesh, which can take forever. To fix the problem, you could delete the mesh, but then you loose the node parameters set up for both the mesh and the fluids inside the mesh. If there was a way to temporarily “turn off” the mesh object (a la Rhino/AutoCAD/etc.) it would essentially solve the problem. I have a solution for this, but its not very elegant. I’ll try posting it in a later post.

3. RealFlow has the elegant interface help solution which allows for you to highlight a node parameter  and press F2 to pop up a short help summary of the parameter. However, if you hit F1 a tiny window pops up and, upon closing said small window the whole program crashes.

4. When you close RealFlow, the program acts like its crashing. Not a bid deal, but it makes you feel uneasy about using the software for in-production work.

 

RealFlow and Architecture

I’m exploring the use of Next Limit’s RealFlow software for creating fluid, hyper indexical architectural environments. Although such an approach has been done before, I’m trying it out all the same. I think the idea of fluidity and the spontaneity of the Montessori method have too much in common to not try to exploit such a technique.

Modeling architecture in RealFlow is like dating a really crazy girl: sure its fun (for awhile), sometimes it’ll blow your mind, but often time the culmination of the consequence (which is really what Real Flow outputs) is frustrating. Therefore, I’ll be posting up some tutorials and advice to help out anyone else who might be interested in creating the same sort of effect without so much of the heartache.

In Real Flow, the user sets up parameters which then get pushed through an animation and the output is a single frame, selected by the architect, meshed for export, and moved into a modeling software. For using RealFlow in Rhino, see the RealFlow Import tool created by David Rutton (download here).To control the export, access export central by pressing F12. Then simply check the mesh file types that you want to generate when you rebuild the meshes. See a video about file export here.

 

To move about the modeling environment, hold down ALT and use the mouse to move about (similar to MAYA).

There are four main Nodes (or manipulators) in RealFlow: objects, daemons, meshes, and emitters: objects are rigid/soft bodies, daemons influence particles during animation, emitters emit particles, and meshes mesh the particles according to very specific parameters. There are four main parameters (among sixty or so) which are key in controlling the fluid mesh: polygon size, filter->relaxation (after filter method is set to “yes”), blend factor, and radius (thanks Gnomon Workshop). All values are scale dependent. Change and rebuild the mesh to see the results.

Other than that, I feel that the interface is fairly simple, comparable to programs like Google SketchUp or the new Rhino OSX interface. You can script fluids, but with what I am working on this would be overkill.

Anyway, here’s a few screenshots to give you an idea of the software’s potential:

I know this is brief, so if you have any questions or something to add, post it in the comments-

Why we use four viewports in modeling software

Why do we use four viewports? Is it for simplicity? Or something else…

This may seem trivial to some, but I found it interesting: the answer lies in mathematics and theory.

In Cartesian space we typically have three coordinates: x y & z. Each view isolates one coordinate, leaving only two variables. In math, when only two variables exist, then you can isolate one to solve the other. When three are present, then the equation becomes somewhat indeterminate. Consider the standard viewport: typically these viewports show elevation or section – a flat representation of the model. We can assume three viewports for the three combinations created with the three coordinates: XY XZ & YZ.

The final viewport is represents what some might consider the fourth coordinate, that being Time. Typically this fourth viewport is a perspective – perspectives show relativity in space; that is, one is closer than another, or distance as representation of time.

Ab Intra

Here’s the poster for the upcoming conference the team (well, really Esquivel) has been working to put together. It’s a collection of practicing architects who are working toward the New aesthetic. These include Tom Wiscombe (Emergent), Paul Preissner (Qui’Virarch), and Jason Payne (Hirsuta).

One can sum up their work in the notion of emergence, as in systems of logic as definers for which outcomes can be variable while still being controlled and fully realized (whether real or virtual). The defining term for the conference, that being ab intra, is the denial of architecture from any other interpretation. This opens a discussion into the current discourse of our work, not in terms of globalization, technology, mathematics, etc, but perhaps understood as the culmination of agendas, a monster to be tamed when revealed upon itself.

If you want to know more, go straight to the source.

It should be good if your into real work and the bleeding edge of everything.

Montessori School Mid-Term Review

The architecture seeks to reclaim dense urban interstitial space through an intervention between towers. Spontaneity of the Montessori process is expressed through spatial representation, or the void, while the positive space creates the necessary enclosure. The project introduces certain sustainable practices such as traffic decongestion, urban renewal, robust structural systems, etc. The porous technique applied to the seemingly regular box allows for light penetration, wind load reduction, and a cool effect to say the least. It’s not a duck, but it will do.

Just finished the first half of the project - thought I would post some of the presentation images-

_quick renders:

_site

 

_plan

 

_elevation

 

leave thoughts in the comments-