Assignment 7

This didn't work out when implementing in Digital Project. The goal of making all of the pentagons planar was abandoned, and hexagons were adopted as well. Here we see the implementation of the hexagonal surface:

(1)Crossing Fans of lines were drawn. (2)The resultant crossing points were used to make a grid of points. (3) Based on the outside boundary of this grid along with a single passing point, a fill surface was created. (4) The appropriate grid points were then projected onto the fill surface yielding a 3-Dimensional grid. (5) The first six sided pyramid was built on this grid. (6) This Pyramid was then power-copied across the 3-D grid. (7) The underlying grid can be modified by moving the fans, changing the angle between fan blades, or changing the fan rotation. (8) A new 3-D geometry is created once the changes cascade through the tree. (9) In yet another  geometry we can see some interesting behavior; the pyramids are sometimes generated in a concave manner, and sometimes in a convex manner.  All pyramids can be switched by changing the height value from a positive(+) to a negative (-), but no easy fix could be discovered to keep all the pyramids going in the same direction.

Finally, an error message always appeared when using global variables:

What can be done to eliminate this?

Assignment 6

My power copy can be seen on the top lower left. Instantiated through the pionts in the background. The next instances of it do not incorporate the bump. When I modify the underlying framework, the bump gets lost on the original power copy as well.

Assignment 5

This is what I'm trying to accomplish in Digital Project

This is as far as I got. I'm having problems getting the pieces to snap to the framework. I need to constrain the framework line (1) to the plane that the main square is also constrained to. Then I need to constrain line (2) of the framwork to the line edge of the parallelogram (3). So far, nothing attempted yields anything but error messages.

On Emergent Formalism

Greatly simplified, the idea that a complicated thing can be created by the interaction of many simple processes is referred to as emergence. From complicated ripple patterns in sand, to the quasi-synchronized movement of a flock of starlings simple rules make for complicated patterns. In parametrically designed architecture the a reverence has arisen for the emergent complexity. When simple rule sets (parameters) are tweaked until a complex form appears which the designer considers aesthetic and/or functional the design is deemed a success. The critique against this is that emergent design is just formalism masquerading as intelligent process.

Then there is the practice of iteration: Design, test/critique, and repeat. This always yields successively better results. Natural selection is a type of iteration. Emergence and iteration are entangled, but they are entirely separate forces. In the cognitive space between these two concepts is the idea of a feedback loop where two forces act to change each other. Each exerts an influence on the other, and each is changed by the other's influence. A Feedback loop can be present in emergent systems, but it is not necessary. Feedback is necessary for iteration, but a feedback loop may not exist. When talking about such a tangled and nebulous subject as emergence many things which are not truly in the subject matter can tend to get conflated.

Assignment 4

Week 4 - Multi-Part Assembly

An animated version of the final functional version

What I was trying to Achieve, as modeled in Rhinoceros

The problem I ran into in Digital Project

Assignment 3

Responses to a few passages from the text "How Do Simulations Know?" by Loukissas

“Being in control of the machine can seem like low-level work.”

Yep, but being in full control yields some pretty great designs. Just like everything else, the devil (and the value) is in the details

“architects try to reconcile the dispersed knowledge of many specialized designers.”

Being able to do this well is the mark of a good designer, or team. The Day that computers can hold a holistic picture in memory, and simulate all repercussions of a building’s design (including political ramifications, and sliding scale of funding based on stylistic considerations) to arrive at a final design with an ambiguous definition of "optimal" will be a day that humans become largely obsolete.

 “…in most cases, a computer simulation is just a verification of what he already knows”

The magic happens when you don’t completely know what the simulation will tell you, and your next step could not have happened without the simulation. Being able to simulate the simulation in your head helps you be more efficient, but in the end there is no substitute for iteration when it comes to designing.

Regarding the passage about engineers spending six months building: The word Architect is derived from ancient words meaning “master builder” it is a shame that in this day and age knowledge has become so specialized that a person finds it difficult to both design and build. Most people don’t have the time to be a builder and a designer. They choose one or the other as a career.

Regarding the tailoring of simulations to the client: Simulations are sometimes sales aids. This is what renderings are for. An architect might use a rendering as a final check to see if the design looks good when represented photorealistically, but it is a final check and not really a design aid.

Regarding “total architecture”: Achieving it is kind of a siren song. If something labeled such comes into existence in the future, I suspect it will just mean that the realm of possibilities has been so constrained through building codes and industry practices that an entire building can be simulated in a virtual environment. Eventually (hopefully) someone will break out of that box, and the “total architecture” model will fail to encompass the new way of thinking.