Bamboo Based Shell Structure Help!

First (Ignore if you just want the problem)

Hello, thanks for the help in the past, ever so grateful for this community! I hope to share my talents on here someday. I try to make my posts thorough so I get a good result.

My Concept:

I am designing a floating house (in Makoko, Lagos, Nigeria) made out of bamboo, complete with sustainable systems. I am exploring form finding shells using Maya, but I am not able to achieve a structure that is buildable (Fig 1) nor structural, being that Typhoons blow through Lagos.

My Problem:

I have a plan to scale, the issue is that I have not found a way to tessellate the mesh equally for form finding in Maya. The main structural system will be bamboo poles followed by a secondary woven panel system.

I have attached a photo shows how bamboo bends (inspiration), I want this along my plan.

What I Need:

1 - Is there a way I could create a simple shell structure using the plan(Mesh relaxation? Karamba? Kangaroo?)?

I have attached Rhino File of my export for maya and plan, as well as screenshot.

2 - How would I be able to control the forces applied to the shell in order to offer some differentiation throughout the shell (Like my Maya Model, Fig1)?

3 - Once I have the shell, I could just extract the isocurve and pipe them, unless anyone has a way of getting something more unique to place and bent the bamboo poles. Is there a way to find the best places for horizontal and vertical members?

Attachments:

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shridhar Mamidalaa on April 22, 2015 at 11:32pm

This Plugin is simple to use http://www.food4rhino.com/project/smartform?ufh

Permalink Reply by Matthew Hickey on April 25, 2015 at 11:10pm

Well I got it to work, the problem is fabricating it though.

How would you do so? I've managed to model a close representation of the output mesh from smartform in NURBS for use in GH.

Permalink Reply by Shridhar Mamidalaa on April 25, 2015 at 11:14pm

If u could convert the mesh to nurbs .. u can use Weaving definition i remember "Alex Hogreffe making a weaving definition.. from nurb surfaces.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Hickey on April 25, 2015 at 11:46pm

I have not been able to find his plugin/definition.

There is something called gridshell components, but there's little documentation on how to use it. I will share the really simple shell once I'm done NURBS'ing it.

Permalink Reply by Shridhar Mamidalaa on April 25, 2015 at 11:59pm

Extracting mesh edges and using patch might do ..