Via UFO-au:

Topostruct is a program for structural topology optimization written by Sawako Kaijima and Michalatos Panagiotis.  It’s development was influenced by the ideas and methods discussed in the book “Topology Optimization, Theory, Methods and Applications” written by M.P. Bendsoe and O. Sigmund.

The software is intended primarily towards designers and non engineers that want to familiarize with topology optimization as well as develop their intuition regarding the structural behaviour of materials.
Topostruct supports both two and three dimensional models.   The user will input the dimensions and resolution of an orthogonal region in space which will be assigned certain material density.  The user must then place different support conditions and applied loads within this region and finally run the optimizer which will yield a distribution of material that best meets these conditions.

Topostruct is available from kaijima & panagiotis’s website http://sawapan.eu/ which has a number of other generative design applets for download.

Check out a couple of interesting entries on vray settings and lasercutting techniques.

algorithmicdesign.net have published a series of rhino based tutorials on computational morphogenesis.

Hope you all enjoyed the session, I post here the ghx file for the tutorial we have gone through. Feel free to post some questions and we can discuss from here.

Tom

Demo01: sorting and Components created on a field

Demo01: ghx

demo01: 091026-DEMO-sortingcompoment

Demo02: surface tessellation with components

Demo02: ghx

demo02: 091026-DEMO-surf-tess

Lift Architects have released the first edition of a Grasshopper Primer.

Shape to Fabrication have made available videos from their previous events:

• Tristan Simmonds
  ARUP Advanced Geometry Unit
  Spacestation sculpture by Antony Gormley

In this presentation Tristan outlines how custom routines were written for Rhino to help in the construction and fabrication of the ‘Spacestation’sculpture by Antony Gormley.

• Florian Gauss
  ARUP Advanced Geometry Unit
  Generative Surface Smoothing and FE Model Automation

Starting with a simple Rhino model ARUP created an extended geometric model followed by custom smoothing routines based on sub-division modelling resampled into nurbs patches.

• Shrikant Sharma
  Buro Happold SMART Group
  Geometry, Form and Optimisation

Shrikant explains Rhino’s key role in several successful
projects by Buro Happold’s SMART team.

The next session in the Shape to Fabrication series will take place on the 15th of April 2009 in the Lecture Theatre at London Metropolitan University.

Chaoscope is a free windows based 3D strange attractors rendering software.

Have a look here for more on solids of strange attractors made with chaoscope data.

Asgvis, the makers of V-Ray for Rhino, have released a series of video tutorials on settings, lights and material creation. You can link to them through our tutorial section or from the list below:

• Default Settings
• Basic Materials
• Rectangular Lights
• Wood and Water Materials
• Glass Material
• Car Paint and Plastic Materials
• HDRI
• Depth of Field
• Emissive Materials
• Chrome and Ceramics Materials

below via serero architects:

AUTOLITH

MOCAPE, Museum of Contemporary Art & Planning Exhibition Shenzhen

International Competition – Finalist 2007

Site: Shenzhen

Client: City of Shenzhen, China

Area: 80 000 m2

Cost: 65 000 000  Euros H.T

Design Team : SERERO Architects (David Serero, Anthony Cheung, Nordine Chevalier, Alice Sabatier, Fabrice Zaini)

Gongshi (or Scholar’s Rocks) is the term for stones that were collected by Chinese scholars because they resembled mountains (both famous and imaginary) and similar natural wonders of the world around. They represented a focus for meditation of religious or philosophic principles and served for contemplation prior to writing poems or painting.  Chinese learned to admire the rocks for “surfaces that suggest great age, forceful profiles that evoke the grandeur of nature, overlapping layers or planes that impart depth, and hollows or perforations that create rhythmic, harmonious patterns.” For over 1,000 years, Chinese literati and Taoist monks often brought these mountains into their studios for meditation and contemplation while they wrote or painted.

Our proposal for the MOCAPE aims in similar terms to question the way the people consider an art museum, and its relationship with its urban environment. It is a point of singularity in the master plan of the Shenzhen Civic Centre. The MOCAPE is not a building, it is rather conceived as a rock , which geometry has been sculpted by program and by its  surrounding condition. It is wrapped by  a continuous surface which integrates strong structural characteristics with ornamental pattern inspired by the traditional Chinese puzzle called the Tangram.

PROGRAMMATIC ORGANIZATION

The MOCAPE volume is generated from our analysis of the building’s program. The museum is conceived as a set of separate entities, which are interconnected and can function together. The building has a torus shape delimitating an interior courtyard, opened to the rest of the city. It is composed of a base, a main plateau and three vertical protuberances.

The base is supported by 5 different feet placed around a reflecting pool of 2500 m2. These feet give access to the 3 interacting entities of the museum: the MOCA program and activities, the Planning and Exhibition department and the shared spaces by these 2 institutions with offices, reception and multipurpose halls.

These 3 vertical protuberances of 28, 32 and 40 meters high ,  are connected together by an elevated plateau, a continuous exhibition hall of 15 000 m2, with 7 meters ceiling height. Each of the floor plates of these entities are reducing in size when they are higher, as they host more private activities.

The first underground floor of the museum is a parking garage for 250 cars, with conference halls and technical rooms and the second underground floor ( 5 meters high ceiling) is used for the storage and the maintenance of artworks.

“TANGRAM” FAÇADE SYSTEM

The MOCAPE façade and rooftop system is a continuous surface with glass and steel cladding, which wraps around the whole building.  Like the ancient Chinese puzzle, the Tangram, this surface is composed of triangular and square panels. They are creating at 3 different scale a set of figures (both abstract and figurative) which are endlessly changing the amount of light penetrating in the museum spaces and filtering the views to the surrounding buildings and to the museum interior courtyard.

The façade is a structural lattice, which operates at different scale. It combines photovoltaic panels to offset the building energy needs, as well as automatic solar shade systems included in the thickness of the glass to control the museum  interior environment.

StructurAL PRINCIPLE

The museum is a made of concrete slabs with triangulated ribs supported by concrete columns. This large span system allows for greater flexibility of the exhibition halls. The façade anchored to the slabs is structurally participating to the stability of the building. Elevator and staircase shafts as well as atrium perforated concrete envelope are efficient structural and seismic bracing for the whole building.

ROCK GARDEN

In the central courtyard of the museum, a reflecting pool with “floating” rocks stimulates the visitors to enter in a state of meditation and observation of nature, in the same way that artists traditionally got inspired by these settings.

It is a mineral and vegetal garden, which provides both a public space inside of the museum as well as an outdoor extension to the museum activities.