that used to be us

events tab informs there are 32 of them taking place but only one in US! I just finished book titled: That used to be us: how America fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back. Cannot stop to wonder.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Stasiuk on September 30, 2011 at 5:56pm

On one I'm consulting for a fabricator, which is private, although the final building (and ultimate client) is public, US-based...the other is for a theater company, quasi-municipal and well-funded, European.

Personally, I think Jon Mirtschin at Geometry Gym is right on the edge of it and a real wave that can come through Grasshopper will center around using the API of more BIM-oriented platfoms (eg Revit, Oasys) to bridge between Rhino + GH's design facility and their robust building processes.

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on September 30, 2011 at 6:09pm

So, no private sector work. :(

I agree. I exchanged some emails with Jon over his IFC exporter. Unfortunately the IFC format is a good idea that on practice is not working very well. I'm actually learning the Revit API mainly to be able to better integrate Revit and Rhino/Grasshopper, not with the aim of creating a plugin for end users, but of creating scripts on a per project basis depending on the need, being the end user myself.

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on September 30, 2011 at 8:38pm

I agree unfortunately with Vicente that IFC at this moment doesn't work so well in practice, not really due to inadequacies in the standard (which is comprehensive and capable) but from a Chicken/Egg scenario where it has been used primarily to date for Coordination/Reference including clash detection. Primitive and simplistic models are adequate for this purpose, and without demand for more "advanced" IFC attributes/shape representations, typically the BIM software developers have only progressed to this level of utilization.

I still think in the medium to long term, a neutral BIM model exchange will become prominent, IFC is the best at the moment but is there alternates around the corner?

For the short term, I have been investing some time to personally learn/research Revit better, and it is dominant on my agenda/todo list to get Grasshopper to Revit interaction directly. If there are users out there with requirements that can be used to prioritize how this progresses, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

I have recently advanced a direct link GH to Tekla (BIM software primarily for structure used extensively for fabrication) and this already showing massive time savings for "duplicated" modelling efforts.

Permalink Reply by Joshua Seskis on September 30, 2011 at 9:38pm

I think there are a lot of barriers for some of the best features of grasshopper in my opinion. The most promising work will be done by some early adopters and fringe groups, or privately inhouse as a research project.

From my view, the ability to bring back together the role of engineer and architect is one of the most promising aspects of GH and Plugins like Karamba and SSI from Jon. Effective co-rational design is cost effective and hopefully time efficient.

I graduate as a Structural Engineer in a few weeks and I am hoping that I can get to keep using this software, even If I have to force it into my workplace.

Ultimately, if the software works, if the workforce is trained and it is clearly time saving - who wouldnt take it up?

Permalink Reply by Mateusz Zwierzycki on September 30, 2011 at 6:39pm

"Grasshopper flies under the radar as a power-drawing tool. Managed correctly, it becomes a means to translate formal gyrations into construction documentation in a way that is much more efficient than hiring a bunch of CAD monkeys."

I agree. Power of Grasshopper is its elasticity. If you dont have tool to make smth, just make your own tool.

What I found most elegant in GH, is its simplicity.

"my brain hurts" when I need to work with revit ;]

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on September 30, 2011 at 12:35pm

Grasshopper is being taught in alot of architecture schools in the US, thats where I picked it up.

Permalink Reply by Lucas Issey Yoshinaga on September 30, 2011 at 9:11pm

Well, the practice that I work here in Curitiba, Brazil, is not focused in parametric,BIM or emergent(name as you wish) design. We try to sell a innovative product, where different perspectives generate new answers to our architectural scenario. We study from philosophy to cooking theories, from empiric design processes to a automatized ones ,and so on.

The parametric design approach has been giving a lot of help in our jorney towards good architecture, since we try to put our theories in practice . We even give workshops in Brazil 'cause of that. But, I must say that grasshopper doesn't give us more hours of rest or give us shortcuts in delivering a project (ask our girlfriends). BUT it makes our ideas possible, and THAT is the big deal.

When we give workshops, often comes students thinking that GH and scripting will do magic, that their projects will have and mathematical logic which will make then perfect and automatic (and i must say that i thought that too).But after a fell projects using parametric design process we saw how hard is to deal with complexity and something innovative (from rotullation, to nesting, from macro views to details, from 3d models to assembly). Just a fell students actually leave the workshops thinking of the possibilities that it opens. The same goes for BIM (i used to teach vectorwoks [hold your stones!!] ,or modeling as Maya or T-splines.

We have clients from the private and public section, and both looked for us not for the parametric stuff, but for good architecture.(not saying that we are there already, but we pursuit that). Sadly many architects look at us as just a fashionably practice or and extravagant one. But the questions behind it are up tho the eyes of the beholder.

As most of you already said, its a tool, and a great one, but voronoi and tessellations alone don't make what we are inspired (and in love) to do : good architecture.

i'm not very good at writing at friday midnight (sorry if it's confusing) , but my point is that: GH doesn't do magic, but enables you to do yours. What people could make with pencils? what can we make with i7 processors?

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on October 1, 2011 at 3:44am

Thanks. Can you share some info on the projects for private clients where Grasshopper was used?

Permalink Reply by Lucas Issey Yoshinaga on October 1, 2011 at 6:46am

i dont know what you are thanking me for , but here is our website:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/

I re-read my post and i sounded a by arrogant, sorry if i did....

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on October 1, 2011 at 7:38am

I was genuinely thanking you for your input.

Next time I'll try to reply with the more cordial "f*ck you, a**hole!" :P

I browsed through the website and couldn't tell which of the projects for private clients used Grasshopper on the design process. Maybe you want to share a specific example.

Permalink Reply by Lucas Issey Yoshinaga on October 1, 2011 at 9:34am

ah! hauhauhauha okay...

sorry to ask, but why are you interested in private section projects?

well, here goes some:

-here is a study prototype that we did for an installation that went wrong, so we putted in the ceiling of the office:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/voronoi-studies/

-here is a co-working office:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/comercial/aldeiacoworking/

http://aldeiaco.com.br/conheca-a-aldeia/

-here are 2 houses:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/habitacional/casas-ea-e-kf/

-here is a competition proposal for Brasilia:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/institucional/cnm/

-here some design products:

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/design/mob/

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/design/mon-ta/

http://atelierum.wordpress.com/projetos/design/morf-ing/

there are more projects under development, but we dont focus in GH, or parametric design... there is a LOT of work after the GH work....and we use parametric process to not only to build stuff, but to visualize complex data and understand certain questions....

hope that it helps....

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on October 1, 2011 at 10:07am

> sorry to ask, but why are you interested in private section projects?

The OP was arguing that the US was falling behind economically because it wasn't adopting GH as much as Europe. I argued that most of the adoption of GH in Europe is not based on a cost-benefit basis.

The only way to tell if something contributes to economic growth is to see if there is any real demand for it by the private sector (i.e. people voluntarily giving away their money in exchange for that service/product). A public project *theoretically* *might* be profitable to taxpayers, but there is no way to tell if it actually is. And usually this is only if there is no way (legally or otherwise) for a private company to offer those same services, like in the case of infrastructure.

The project for the competition you linked seems to be for a public institution. The rest are only furniture design except for the villa. How was GH used in that project? It looks as if it was used to create the pattern of the first floor facade, was it used for anything else?