Physico-Logical Design Workshop

Toni Kotnik and Lorenz Lachauer will lead a design studio at the AA Summer dLab 2009, 3 - 14 August. In the workshop the process of abstraction of physical phenomena will be exemplified by an investigation into patterns of movement of bodies in space and the architectural utilization of these patterns by means of parametric and geometric variation.

A motion sequence by Eadweard Muybridge

The movement of a drummers hand performing a single stroke

Read Colors From File

The RGB chanels ploted as surface

The input image

This VB script component reads the RGB values from a jpeg file
Download the grasshopper definition ColorSurface.zip here

Chemnitz Stadion

Winning competition entry for the Chemnitz Stadion, Germany, 1995, Peter Kulka with Cecil Balmond





The roof structure is based on a spirograph curve, sketches by Cecil Balmond, from his book "Informal", p. 159

Spirograph.zip generates spirograph curves with grasshopper

Busan Towers

This project is the competion entry of UNStudio for the World Business Centre in Busan, South Korea, 2006. The geometry of the floor plates is based on rolling curves.
Pictures (c) by UNStudio

Rolling curves are also known as spirograph curves.

Formula Tower

At digital matters, Tobias Wallisser from LAVA presented his Superformula Tower concept. Inspired by this beautiful idea, I created a grasshopper definition for towers based on a simpler formula.

The floor plate shapes are based on this formula:

(in polar coordinates)

r(φ) = 1 - a(1 + Sin(φ b))

FormulaTower.zip

Bricks

Inspiered by the work of Gramazio & Kohler, I plugged together a grasshopper definition, that generates a perforated brick wall from planar curves. Similiar studies in wood have been made recently at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard

Bricks.zip

(c) by Gramanzio & Kohler

Balmond's Sigma Code

The Search for the Sigma Code has a dense plot and relies on another imaginary narrator (not a monk this time, but) a boy called Enjil. If you have ever wondered why any prime number is greater than three will, when raised to the sixth power, leave a remainder of one when divided by nine, you will be at home with this book. -- Vanessa Thorpe, The Independent On Sunday - 13 September 1998

You get the sigma code of a given number n like this:
1. Calculate the sum s of all digits of n.
2. If s is smaller then 10, s is the sigma value.
3. Else set n=s and return to 1.
With this definition it is possible to calculate the sigma values of number sequences. The result of some simple sequences are beautiful patterns:

This diagrams you obtain from the Fibonacci and the Pell sequence by using (and modifing) the following script: SigmaCode.zip