Lecture at ESA

Philipp Eversmann and Paul Ehret kindly invited me to give a lecture at the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture, Paris, on April 30, as part of the seminar In Silico Design. Recent research from the BLOCK Research Group and the Chair of Structural Design, both ETH Zurich, will be presented.

"What do you want, brick?"

To express is to drive.

And when you want to give something presence,

you have to consult nature.

And there is where Design comes in.

And if you think of Brick, for instance,

and you say to Brick,

"What do you want Brick?"

And Brick says to you

"I like an Arch."

And if you say to Brick

"Look, arches are expensive,

and I can use a concrete lentil over you.

What do you think of that?"

"Brick?"

Brick says:

"... I like an Arch"

Louis Kahn

from John Lobell: Between Silence and Light, p. 59.

Geometry and Proportion in Structural Design

A great book about construction history:

"This collection of essays covers the wide range of topics about structural design, structural design approaches and structural pioneers in honor of the Spanish architect Ricardo Aroca. [...] He radically changed the structural education of architectural students. Aroca pushed it away from a primary analytical analysis towards the discovery of the flow of forces [...] This book includes most important and interesting thoughts on the relation between architectural and structural forms and the fact that both disciplines – architecture and engineering – have differing approaches to the function of a structure." Cited from the book review by
Annette Bögle. The only handicap for me is, that some of the essays written in spanish are not translated into english.


In his essay, Santiago Huerta, one of the book's editors, discusses the fascinating theorem of transformation of structures by William Rankine, first described in the Manual of Applied Mechanics (1858). Huerta's full article can be downloaded here.

Bugs for Breakfast

Very promising new blog by David Rutten, the creator of Grasshopper. With a nice name ...

Geometry of the Venetian Gondola

On my last trip to Venice I realized, that the shape of the venetian gondola is not only elegant, but also functional and higly optimized. Developed in the mid-19th-century, the sections of the boat are asymmetric, in order to balance the weigth of the gondoliere, who stands one side of the boat. Referred to the traditional Tramontin shipyard, the geometry of the boat is curved in plan, according to the weight of the oar.

Plans (c) by Gilberto Penzo.


Photo (c) by Alberto de Marco.

Carlo Borer's Sculpture '422' Completed

Pictures (c) by Carlo Borer.

In previous posts I reported about the design and fabrication process of this piece of art.

Rhumblr - Blogging from Rhino to Tumblr

Document your design process online with on click!


I used Rhino.Python to write a script, that posts the current view to your Tumblr account. A service in Tumblr automatically sends your posts to Twitter, if enabled. The script uses the Tumblr API.


Download rhumblr.py and installation instructions here.