Assembly: Bogdan Badila, Vlad Pop, Georgiana Hlihor, Denisa Lula, Robert Veber, Zoltan Vaida, Imre Vekove, Ciprian Colda, Mihai Pascalau, Calin Negret, Bogdan Borbei, Iustin Nechiti, Dan Ioanici, Razvan Luca, Stefan Grosariu, Ioana Suceava, Alexandra Man, Andreea Darac, Irina Mates, Oana Bogatan, Andrei Varga, Radu Badila, Elza Sandor, Alex Greceniuc, Oana Matei, Alex Vladovici, Marcel Oprean, Ioan Pop, Vlad Rusu, Ioana Tomoioaga.

Location: Cluj, Romania Date: 4-7th May2011

Photographs: Patrick Bedarf, Georgiana Hlihor, Daniel Bondas, Georgeta Macovei Text: Dimitrie Stefanescu

Intro

The project started out as an ambitious student-powered endeavor to design and fabricate at a 1:1 scale the flagship pavilion for the ZA11 Speaking Architecture event in Cluj, Romania. While at the same time integrating into its historically-charged context, the design (which was elaborated to a concept stage during a week-long workshop) boasts a strong representational power which was much needed in order to fulfill its main goal: attracting passers-by to the event. At the same time, the object, through its tectonic characteristics, tries to make legible the new ontology which is slowly defined by computational architecture and thus becomes a showcase for the design processes empowered by digital tools.

Process

The design was elaborated during a week-long parametric design workshop (CLJ02) specifically geared towards its production which, in theory, was seen as a continuation of the previous event (CLJ01: Parametric Desing Workshop, organized by Ionut Anton and myself). We were faced with the harsh requirements of creating an actually working design with just the material and tools available from sponsors (over which we hardly had any choice) while at the same time fitting costs inside a budget dwarfed by its expectations. Subsequently, the creative exploration agenda was constrained to a relatively limited approach which, most importantly, was scalable in terms of materials and fabrication techniques. The realization of the design was made possible by advanced use of parametric design techniques (using Rhino+Grasshopper), with the help of which the whole process was controlled from exact geometry generation to piece labeling, assembly logic, actual fabrication (CNC milling) and, of course, cost control.

SuperConnect in action. We have plans for releasing the whole Grasshopper definition and Rhino file used for the project – stay tuned!

Here’s a time-lapse video of the assembly process:

As an educational exercise it completed the design phase and proved to be invaluable in terms of actually understanding and working with the constraints encountered in real-life. Varying material thickness (and subsequent extra flexibility and less joint stiffness), rain and wind posed many challenges which had to be resolved on-site as quickly as possible so as to meet the assembly deadline.

Conclusions

The ZA11 Pavilion emerged as a powerful urban attractor which managed to engage the local society on all levels. Interest was aroused in both young and senior citizens, both professionals and non-architects by the completed pavilion as well as during the act of its construction, thus proving to be more than an indifferent temporary shelter. Furthermore, it successfully provided a flexible and comfortable space for the different events pertaining to the event (temporary bookshop, open-air cinema, tea party, jam sessions and a small concert + sleeping in the sun) to unfold.

The first of its kind in Romania, the ZA11 Pavilion can be definitively called a successful architectural experiment. Designed and assembled only by students (with little preliminary outside help), it successfully met all expectations and proved to be an invaluable experience in blending avant-garde design techniques on a relatively large scale with a low budget and a skeptical professional context.

construction

construction photos

Special thanks to: Mircea Stefanescu, Dan Brasoveanu [Graphtec], Nejur Andrei, Rares Dragan [Atelier RVD]
Sponsors: Graphtec, Holver

A nifty little tool for creating connectors between pretty much any kind of planar surfaces which intersect themselves at the edges.

What it basically does is to output in a ordered structure the intersecting faces (as tree branches) and their intersection line. From there on you can continue to build up your own connectors however you like.

The example file contains the Grasshopper definition, Connector-Notch Script and an example Rhino file. Read below for more.

The workflow is as follows:

1. Select the faces you want to make the connectors for and input them into the Grasshopper definition.
2. Bake on separate layers the offset faces and the connectors.
3. Run the script provided and provide the necessary inputs in the correct order (connectors, faces and material thickness).
4. Enjoy.

Troubleshooting:

There will be errors. They always are. Here’s how and where to look for them:

• Faces might actually not intersect, even if they seem so. To check, manually select the faces causing problems and use Rhino to detect their intersection (type intersect). Sometimes things are not as it seems.
• If the radius of a connector exceeds the faces’s size, the script will go berserk. Try reducing the connector radius and things should start looking up. You can also improve the script to use adaptive connector radii in respect with the face size.
• If the material thickness is too big or too small, geometry will start crashing.
• Cull faces which are too small – you might have a little face somewhere which is 0.0004 m^2 and causing problems.
• Check the units you’re working on. The definition’s parameters are set for meters.
• Otherwise, you can email me. Take note that this is a free, spare-time, no-guarantee, as-is service – don’t send me three emails just in case i didn’t get the first one

Download: 110615 SuperConnect.zip (2.21 mb)

SuperConnect working in real-life (spoiler for the future)

(27.05.09) The Symposium takes place at 18:00 in the Geodätenstand 6 O.G. TU Berlin Hauptgebäude, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin.

The Rule Based Design Symposium highlights contemporary academic and practice based research employing CAD, CAM, Coding/Web tools in addressing & communicating architectural design intents & constraints. The research spectrum ranges from theory to the digital crafting of buildings and their components.

Organized by Christophe Barlieb.

Flexibility in thought and expression is vital to all creative fields. The power of a new generation of parametric and bespoke CAD tools lies in the ability to negotiate and communicating the design intent clearly. This streamlining saves time, materials while integrating architecture, engineering and fabrication over the course of the entire architectural design process.

The symposium features research works by young contemporary academics in the fields of mathematics, architecture and fabrication

Schedule:
Time Speaker Affiliation Theme
18:00 Gisela Baurmann TU Berlin RBD Opening Statements
18:05 Kristoffer Josefsson TU Berlin Mathematics in Architecture
18:25 Dimitrie Stefanescu U.Bucharest Scripting Architecture
18:45 Christophe Barlieb TU Berlin Integration of Engineering & Design
19:05 Norbert Palz CITA Rapid Prototyping in Architecture
19:25 Martin Tamke CITA Fabrication of Architecture
19:45 Baurmann, Barlieb, Pfeiffer TU Berlin Discussion with Speakers & Public
20:00 PARTY

Deprecated. Here’s the new version.

More as a scripting experiment, when i was mucking about trying to make the delaunay triangulation work in grasshopper i somehow found the wonderfully complex qhull library which i promptly set to push and pull to get it to work with grasshopper. As advised on their website, the best way to do it is to call it as an external program, which is exactly what i’ve done:  no files are written or read, no dos windows pop up, everything’s smooth.

Given that you don’t have many complex operations in grasshopper after the solution is generated, you’ll be able to handle quite an impressive amount of points (say 200 on my three-year old toplap) in real time. If you add the simple planarSrf operation, then say 60-70 and it gets sloppy.

What you’ll need to do to get things rolling:

0. Download the 3dvqhull definition and example file, and remember not to use it for commercial purposes, share-alike whatever you do with it and take the time to give the proper credits: 

1. Download qhull, and unzip it in a folder of your choice.

2. Get going and search for “System.dll”. What you’re interested in is the 2.0 version which you’ll usually find in here: “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.5[...]\”. If you can’t find it, I’m amazed grasshopper works for you. Anyway, you can find and install it from here.

3. Add the newly found System.dll version 2.o as a referenced assembly of the qhull component in the definition file.

If it turns orange, it’s cool.

4. Write in the panel that is linked to the “path” input the full path to the qhull program qvoronoi. You don’t need to add the .exe extension, but you can do it if you feel confortable.

5. There’s just one more thing you should know: facets that contain the infinite vertex are omitted altogether, without remorse. So as to have as little facets tending towards infinitum, I always add the corners of the points bounding box to the input sites.

You can scale the bounding box in respect with its center, or you can just call the whole thing off – it’s your choice.

I think this just about covers everything. Take care and have fun.

didi out.

PS: Qhull does more than voronoi. So if you have the time to explore and test, please do – the package is very powerfull and it can be used for more than this.

I get to speak on the 2nd of April there about parametric modelling and show off some projects. Suggestions are more than welcome.

Out of popular demand, I have compiled a nice file detailing the possible uses of the Voronoi node, complete with the accompanying rhino file.

Download. (60 kb .zip)