Perfect buildings: the maths of modern architecture March 2007 Architecture has in the past done great things for geometry. Together with the need to measure the land they lived on, it was people's need to build their buildings that caused them to first investigate the theory of form and shape. The London City Hall on the river Thames. Foster + Partners is an internationally renowned studio for architecture led by Norman Foster and a group of senior partners. Many of Foster + Partners' projects have one thing in common: they are huge. The Specialist Modelling Group The Foster + Partners Specialist Modelling Group (SMG), of which De Kestelier and Peters are members, was set up in 1997. Mathematical surfaces populated with panels. With the help of computers you can model pretty much every aspect of a building, from its physics to its appearance. An architect's model of 30 St Mary Axe. Parametric modelling has been around since the 1960s, but only now are architects fully exploiting its power. Parametric models do all this for you. Polymaths
BeginnersGuide/Programmers This is a Wiki page. Users with edit rights can edit it. You are, therefore, free to (in fact, encouraged to) add details of material that other Python users will find useful. A beginner-friendly Python tutorial that starts with the absolute basics but also covers more advanced stuff like Python software deployment. Mediated Matter Neri Oxman and Steven Keating Functionally graded materials–materials with spatially varying composition or microstructure–are omnipresent in nature. From palm trees with radial density gradients, to the spongy trabeculae structure of bone, to the hardness gradient found in many types of beaks, graded materials offer material and structural efficiency. Rhino Python Tutorials – Plethora Project Plethora-Project.com is an initiative to accelerate computational literacy in the frame of architecture and design. It aligns with the "show me your screens" motto of the TopLap live-coding group attempting to get rid of Obscurantism in digital design. Directed by Jose Sanchez Contact me at : jomasan@gmail.com Bio: Jose Sanchez is an Architect / Programmer / Game Designer based in Los Angeles, California. He is partner at Bloom Games, start-up built upon the BLOOM project, winner of the WONDER SERIES hosted by the City of London for the London 2012 Olympics. He is the director of the Plethora Project (www.plethora-project.com), a research and learning project investing in the future of on-line open-source knowledge.
Before they made it, they broke the mold. Pleated Shell Structures 1 – Part 1 of 2. Part 2, an interview with designer Shajay Bhooshan, will post on Thursday, Dec 6. The Pleated Shell Structures recently exhibited at SCIArc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) are a pair of free-standing, canopy-like structures made primarily of FRP. They are the product of an experiment in fabric-forming of FRP instead of using hard molds, a method that uses the stretching properties of fabrics to define a minimal surface meeting certain boundary conditions. Forms were fabricated and cast at Kreysler & Associates in American Canyon, CA, north of San Francisco, and the project was assembled onsite at SCIArc in Los Angeles, all in just 8 days. The importance of the project is its exploration of shapes defined by edge conditions, and their translation into an alternative method for forming FRP. The method under exploration is to make frames, composed of flat pieces of plywood, whose curvilinear edges have fabric stretched over them.
Cookbook Associates - Transformable Design - abi The Adaptive Building Initiative (ABI), founded in 2008, is a joint venture between Buro Happold and Hoberman Associates dedicated to designing a new generation of buildings that optimize their configuration in real time by responding to environmental changes. Adaptation is essential to managing the problem of climate change. To meet this growing challenge, ABI creates the products, systems, and tools that achieve new levels of sustainable performance. ABI designs and produces adaptive façade and building envelopes. By controlling light levels, solar gain, and thermal performance, ABI’s adaptive systems reduce energy usage, enhance comfort, and increase the flexibility of the built environment. ABI draws on a portfolio of systems that they customize to deliver complete, comprehensive, and integrated solutions for specific projects. ABI was founded on the premise that a networked business entity helps us reach our goal: to build.
Associates - Transformable Design - News POLA hosts Hoberman retrospective: Living Form POLA Museum Annex, Tokyo, Japan January-February 2010 The POLA Museum Annex is hosting an exhibition of Hoberman work. Titled ‘Living Form. The Transformable Work of Chuck Hoberman’, the show is a retrospective of some of the designs created by Hoberman in the past 20 years. The exhibition is held in the new Tokyo headquarters of Japanese cosmetics manufacturer POLA. The building opened in October 2009, and includes a transformable facade designed by Hoberman Associates and architects Yasuda Atelier and Nikken Sekkei. Exhibit-goers are given control of the transformable facade through an interactive console, enabling them to change its color and actuate its transformation. Hands-on interaction includes a selection of toys from the Hoberman line that can be picked up and manipulated.