Exercises in Erwin Hauer

A study of Hauer’s ‘Design 3’ at core.form-ula breaks down the panelization of the design into manageable pieces. It is worth a look if you are interested in the architecture. The images below are another rendition of the Hauer panels (Design 3) inspired by the information on core.form-ula. This exercise takes it a step further with more flexibility in parametric definition i.e. the panel mass and crest/trough depth is adjustable. These images are created in Revit 2009 from the same panel component family. The hardest part of these panels systems is understanding how to make them repeatable, which ends up being a combination of mirroring along different axis. Over the past month the reviewing and testing of the alpha release of Revit 2010 has been occupying much time. There may be significant changes to how one might create a panel system such as the Hauer panels. There are some exciting enhancements and the release date will provide an opportunity to share some of this with you.

 

  

On another topic…

 

The Co.d.ex Project link above is a cool drawing exchange project that is worth keeping tabs on. There’s not much to see yet as the project is just starting off and the first drawing is being mailed to one of the participants Monday 02/23/2009. codexproject.blogspot.com

- Craig Barbieri

Facets (cont’d)

Happy New Year folks!

I thought I would add this other facet component for you… This one is far more flexible.  The real-deal of this family is far more complex but this one gets the idea across good enough. Take it for a spin:

Download here

An issue with working in a faceted facade is that it is necessary to re-align pretty much all of the curtain grids if you want the grids to remain perpendicular/horizontal. They have a tendency to align themselves how they please. Does anyone know how the curtain grids decide to base their grid orientation?

Facets

My last post mentioned the parametric facet massing family component I have been working on. The little image I posted may have given you an idea of what it is supposed to do. But I have had a couple hours to push my little project further and test it out on a quick building design, providing a more descriptive image. Four of these faceted components are used for the base and four are used for the fractured top in the image below:

click for full size image

Essentially the component does two things:

1. Creates faceted facades based on several parametric values

i. height, width of the overall assembly and of each facet section, position of each facet section, depth of facet angle, etc. etc.

2. As a massing component, it gives the ability to selectively apply wall types to each facet face.

Below is the layout of the system:

And below is the parameter set:

One of the tricks to making this work is creating a method for two of these to join up at the edges without an apparent or disconnected condition. This is achieved be creating a consistent facet edge condition, even under facet angle change.

This component can be expanded to the nth degree with more facets and controls. Also, by adding cutting voids to the component family, we can begin to lose the right angle corners at the tops. I would like to rotate and slope this assembly as well but I haven't figured that part out yet. I think I'm going to have to rebuild it or nest it into another component and link the parameters through to do that. If you have ideas, send them to me.

The building sketch above uses two types of this component. The type used on the base facade is the typical one described above. The second type is a modified version of the above that has had it's workplane association removed, causing the fracturing of the system. Another feature of this component is that you don't have to use every face, but instead can selectively choose faces to use, leaving others empty.

Here's a little video walking you through the creation of a building shell using this massing component (narrated by Alvin the chipmunk):

 

Download the file here: Facet Component Families

Cheers,

Craig

Design Slam @ AU 2008

After walking away from a smoking mouse last Wednesday night, I find myself icing down my mousing arm and keyboard fingers, and still recovering, but that's right, I won the Design Slam! It was sure fun! Here's couple Renders of my design:

I have never been to Mies Van Der Rohe’s German Pavilion in Barcelona, but have a new appreciation for it after this awesome competition. The pavilion is very much about space, material and perception. It is a difficult challenge to respond to it with another pavilion while respecting its position in Architectural history. So instead of competing with it, I chose to deconstruct it in the neighboring landscape, providing opportunities to perceive its elements in a new way. This expression of the pavilion becomes more of a landscape than another pavilion, yet provides the same amenities of seating and shelter and vantage point, and also makes use of the existing reflecting pool at the opposite end. In looking at it now, the design almost reads as remnants of construction of the original pavilion, which is an unintentional bonus. The whole experience was a pleasure, albeit a little stressful, cranking out a design in the 20 minutes!

My presentations went well and the rest of the conference was fantastic. The Newport application was presented and should be showing up on Autodesk Labs soon. I can tell you that it is a cutting edge, real-time, visualization tool, that enables you to take your Revit models via FBX to new levels of experience. I'll talk more about this at the end of the month.

I've been toying with another thing, inspired by a project we are doing in Riyadh. A faceted design in Revit should be relatively easy correct? Well maybe not but what if you had a massing family that let you adjust the facets of your facade as you pleased?

These examples are a quick, proof of concept with the one on the left skinned with Generic wall and the one on the left partially skinned with a curtain system. The facets are adjustable in many ways but will always be cohesive. It is something that uses the void-hosting technique that Phil Read showed off a while back for curtain panels, but releasing it from the panel restrictions to be a more free-form or large scale building envelope that uses a portion of these facets to make up it's facade. This in combination with other masses could whip up a slew of design options for a faceted tower in Riyadh.

Cheers!

Autodesk University 2008 ~ Design Slam

This year's AU is set to be a very busy one for me. I'll be Presenting a session called "Techniques for large project Architectural interiors in Revit" on Tuesday December 2nd at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Then on on Thursday I'll be presenting an Autodesk Newport(you'll have to be at AU to find out what Newport is) project I have been working on at KlingStubbins. But to top all of this, on Wednesday night I will be competing against two other Reviteers in the AU Design Slam! The event proves to be very entertaining with 20 minutes to crank out a design in Revit, while our screens are projected high in the air to an on-looking rave-like audience of AU attendees. If you are at AU, come and cheer me on!

AU Design Slam
Wednesday, December 3
7:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
Palazzo, Halls A–D
Venetian Hotel

Come and say Hi. See you there!