© Simply Rhino Limited 2009 2

Shape to Fabrication 3 - Rhino for Architecture

Date: Wednesday 15th April 2009

Time: 8.45 am to 5.30pm

Cost: £75 + VAT per attendee enquiries and bookings email: fionuala@simplyrhino.co.uk or call: 0208 498 9900

Venue: Lecture Theatre Metropolitan Works London Metropolitan University 16 Goulston Street London E1 7TP United Kingom

see map below

Simply Rhino in association with Metropolitan Works are pleased to announce Shape to Fabrication 3. Industry leaders from Architecture, Landscaping, Urban Planning & Engineering will present & share projects from around the world highlighting issues of design, use of technology and methodology from concept forms & shapes, through to complex engineering analysis and final manufacturing.

Narrowing the links between complex and challenging architectural form and fabrication is a strong emphasis of each presentation. "Direct to Fabrication" is a common theme.

Also, you will see the latest developments in Rhino modelling technology, with a look ahead to Rhino 5.0, plus updates on Grasshopper the graphical algorithm editor for Rhino 4.0, the popular V-Ray for Rhino rendering technology, the terrain modelling and analysis solution RhinoTerrain and more.

Please note that by attending this event you agree to be filmed. Film footage will be used by Simply Rhino Limited for marketing purposes and featured on their website.

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Provisional Agenda

8.45am to 9.15am

Registration and Coffee

Please arrive in good time to register - we are expecting around 200 delegates.

9.15am to 9.20am

Welcome & Rhino in ArchitecturePaul Cowell and Phil Cook - Simply Rhino Limited

Simply Rhino, organiser of this event, is the UK supplier for Rhino and all Rhino related products and services.

Established in 2002, Simply Rhino offers Rhino software and key Plug-In support including the popularV-Ray for Rhino, Rhino Terrain and T-Splines for Rhino.

As certified Rhino Trainers, customers have access to a range of training options from introductory classes to tailored sessions to solve individual project workflow issues.

9.20am to 9.30am

Inside McNeelScott Davidson - McNeel US

Scott will outline the business strategy and background of Robert McNeel & Associates and summarise the product development process at the company before moving on to take a look at the latest news on Rhino v5 and Rhino for Mac.

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9.30am to 9.45am

Rhino Panelling ToolsGlasgow Museum of TransportJonathan Sheridan - Designpartners

When 24,000 standing seam, Zinc tiles were needed to cover the innovative sculptural form of architect Zaha Hadid’s, 2009, Glasgow Museum of Transport building in Scotland, Varla UK (specialist zinc and copper cladding producers) were faced with an interesting set of problems.Every tile had to be individually crafted, to create, a durable, waterproof and perfect fit to the sculptural outline of the building’s skin contours.

Rhinos new Panelling Tools: Making the job of getting the tiles from 3D model into reality simple.

Tile sizes were driven by criteria added into the plugin Panelling Tools, and dealt with it by using a 3D point grid system. The staggered tile design, specified by Hadid, could be easily drawn between the 200mm pattern points along the Iso-lines of the building’s form. 

Rhino’s ability to create tiling from stringent design criteria is amazing in itself, especially as there are over 24,000 individually shaped tiles. Cutting tools have been devised which flatten the tiles, space them out in order and then put them in place to create a dimensioned drawing for each tile.

Image © Designpartners

Image © Designpartners

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9.45am to 10.15am

Westfield Shopping Centre, LondonPier Head, LiverpoolJames Haig Streeter - EDAW

Westfield Shopping Centre, London

A £1.7bn development at Westfield Shopping Centre. Integral to the scheme, EDAW's work on 16,000 square meters of landscape and public realm has created a grand entrance, attractive and accessible pedestrian streets and vibrant interior and exterior public spaces. The generous public realm includes seating, planters, water cascade and expansive living wall.

The streetscape incorporates flowing lines in black and silver-grey granite paving reflecting the pedestrian desire lines, which draws shoppers into the space from the new underground, overground rail and bus stations completed by the developer. These forms were generated using scripting in Rhino from concept through to construction documentation, enabling refinements to be efficiently made, with detail drawings and bills of quantities automatically generated.

Pier Head, Liverpool

The regeneration of Liverpool’s primary public realm as part of the its 2008 European City of Culture celebrations, located within the context of the city’s World Heritage Site and famous Three Graces.

A new canal link and landscape improvements form part of a major regeneration programme at the Pier Head and adjacent Mann Island area which EDAW has masterplanned and seen through to construction. The scheme has been modelled in Rhino from the outset of the project, this becoming increasingly important during the detailed design phases. The final scheme comprises a series of sinuous seat wall elements, their complex geometry's being cut from solid granite using CNC technology.

Image © EDAW Image © EDAW

Image © EDAW

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10.15am to 10.45am

Expanding the Parametric DomainThe Monterrey Football Stadium and Custom Design ToolsGil Akos & Ronnie Parsons - Studio Mode

In collaboration with the Populous design team, Studio Mode developed a custom model and digital design environment for a new football stadium in Monterrey, Mexico. This project involved the iterative development of the stadium’s overall form, skin, and associated surface geometry, including material break-lines and “gilled” apertures. The unique challenges presented by the design objectives suggested the development of a parametric yet easily adaptable model to be used by the in-house design team for the schematic through design development phases. In order to facilitate the use of a non-restrictive design tool while maintaining precise control over both fixed and yet undefined constraints, we utilized and further customized Grasshopper, a freely distributed parametric plug-in for Rhinoceros.

The project was undertaken in three phases allowing a concurrent development of both the stadium geometry and the design environment in which the parametric model would be interfaced. As the design team further refined the overall geometry, new information from the skin and structural engineering teams that impacted the design was able to quickly and efficiently be assimilated into the parametric model. While new technical strategies of including those constraints were necessary in order to address the changing design of the stadium, each development of the parametric domain was necessarily tempered by the usability concerns of the fast-moving design team. The controls of the model included both abstract numeric sliders as well as driver curves based in a 1:1 metric, relating the stadium geometry directly to its parametric definitions. In accessing the openNURBS library of Rhinoceros through the creation of scripted nodes in VisualBasic DotNet, we were able to create a fully dynamic parametric model

Image © Studio Mode

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and extend its potential for design. Our developmental methodologies for the model, while empowered by the parametric platform, required the use of these custom and scripted nodes to meet the team’s design agenda. Thus, the extension and resulting adaptability of Grasshopper were of utmost importance in maintaining usability by the design team while enabling the production of a desired geometrical form.

It is our supposition that the extension of a parametric environment and consequent expansion of design parameters offers us as designers a robust model for the development of design scenarios. Furthermore, we propose that the design objectives in this project could not have been achieved without the parallel development of the project and model by separate entities, which exemplifies in itself a parametric mode of designing.

Image © Studio Mode

Image © Studio Mode / Populous

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10.45am to 11.00am

Digital Terrain Modelling for RhinoClaude Vuattoux - Rhino Terrain

Rhino Terrain is powerful terrain modeller fully integrated inside Rhino. In this presentation Claude Vuattoux will outline some of the exciting new developments for the currently in development Rhino Terrain v1.5.

• Ultra fast terrain creation with constrained Delaunay triangulation (> 2 million triangles per second)• Ultra fast contour curve generation that works with extremely large terrain mesh• Gridded terrain generation with user definition• Ultra fast viewshed analysis for impact study (television, phone antenna; wind turbine position,• house point of view)• Terrain slope and height analysis• Stepped Terrain (ideal for architecture project presentations)• Shaded contour lines display• Terrain filtering• Cut and fill volume computations• Import of 3D GIS data (ArcInfo; ugs dem, Bd Alti)• Import from Leica 3D scanner with coloured RGB point cloud• Ultra fast mesh terrain tiling with georeferenced orthophoto support• ZCorp 3D printer support for 3D terrain printing• The majority of functions now use the multicore feature (multithreaded) for increased productivity

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11.15am to 11.45am

Madrid Law Courts with Foster and PartnersMediacite Liege with Ron Arad Associates

Emiliano Cevallos and Jalal El-Ali - Buro Happold

Madrid Law Courts

The roof of the project is created from a series of connected triangular panels. The initial design only created the external thus design surface of the building. The challenge was to find the material offset, meaning structural beams and nodes. The offset was constrained by a maximum distance and all the nodes needed to meet neatly in one point. We developed an automated routine that optimizes the position of the structure. The original surface was automatically altered if limits were reached. The panels, structural beams and nodes were all automatically extracted and documented.

The process kept the design decision in the hands of the designer by allowing for a control over the form of the building while embedding the understanding of the fabrication rules.

Image © Buro Happold / Foster and Partners

11.00am to 11.15am

Break for Refreshments

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Mediacite Liegewith Ron Arad Associates

The Mediacite project in Liege is a complex roof structure comprising a series of compound curves which extend through the whole length of the building, creating an undulating form. The depth of the beams varies along their length, adding intricacy to the roof.

Our involvement was to automate the analysis of the beams, simplifying them to resemble a conventional beam sections and creating the G-Code for the machines to cut them. In principle we needed to create a series of infinitely small beams with regular sections that are readable by a conventional cutting machine to cut and weld them. The model is built using rhino script. All building information was extracted automatically. In the process we recycled Rhino Script routines, using them from the conception of the design all the way through to the fabrication of it.

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11.45am to 12.15pm

Santa Maria del Pianto - NaplesSSI _ Smart Structural InterpreterFred Labbé and Jon Mirtschin - Expedition Engineering

Santa Maria del Pianto - Naples

Expedition Engineering have been designing with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners a 2,300m2 honeycomb canopy roof for the new Santa Maria del Pianto underground station in Naples. The arrangement of the honeycomb structure, which will be made of 2,700 vertical steel plate elements, has been optimised using a genetic algorithm to maximise daylight penetration in the station shaft, provide some degree of shading on the lift platform at ground level and be structurally efficient.

Evolutionary algorithms operate on a ‘population’ of possible solutions and apply the principle of survival of the fittest, generation after generation. This technique has been successfully applied to drive the ordering of the roof elements as a response to a set of often conflicting objectives. Each steel plate element will be plasma cut from digital information, which makes the resulting design build-able and affordable. All scripting was done in VB.NET. The script included parameterisation of the design, a sunlight assessment module and integration with a structural analysis software

Image © Expedition Engineering

SSI _ Smart Structural Interpreter

SSI (Smart Structural Interpreter) is set of plug-ins presently being developed to allow architects and structural engineers to efficiently model and sculpt structures they are designing, particularly during early scheming of projects when rapid changes are occurring. The structural drawing utility provides a section database of universal beams, columns, channels and hollow sections to allow these profiles to be added to rhino models in the form of cross-section curves, brep faces or extruded beams. It also provides small utilities useful for viewing and manipulating Rhino model files.

Importing and exporting structural data for analysis models has also been developed, primarily for Oasys GSA with other packages being developed. This allows structural attributes to be retained in the Rhino model that are generally lost during typical CAD data transfers. Tools to generate and interpret structural model attributes from primitive Rhino models are also provided.

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From the very early massing study experimentations to the very final shop drawing production, parametric techniques have become an invaluable tool for design and development of contemporary architecture. The KPF Geometry Group will discuss the transforming role of digital design technologies in response to ever changing requirements throughout the life span of architectural projects. The talk will reflect on the need for increased flexibility for rapidly adapting to new conditions while maintaining the overall geometric system’s stability.

12.15pm to 12.30pm

The Life Cycle of Associative Modelling in Architectural PracticeJuan E Subercaseaux - Kohn Pederson Fox Computational Geometry Group London

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12.30pm to 12.45pm

Sliders to StructureParametric Generation of Structural Analysis Models with RhinoPaul Jeffries - ARUP AGU

Arup AGU uses the free Rhino Plugin Grasshopper to create parametric models that allow changes to the model to be made quickly and easily. However during the later stages of design these advantages can be lost as more manual work is required to produce structural analysis models and making changes becomes more costly and time-consuming. In order to ease this process of creating a structural model from an architectural one we are currently developing in-house our own Rhino plug-in, Salamander, that allows structural information to be added to the Rhino geometry and entire structural models to be exported ready for analysis.

During an ongoing project a large amount of geometry needed to be created and the design kept flexible in order to allow the most desirable solution to be found given a large number of considerations. To facilitate this we have been using Grasshopper in conjunction with Salamander to generate not only geometry but also structural information required for analysis, such as section sizes, restraints and loading data and to create fully featured analysis models from this information, allowing new changes to the geometry to be quickly investigated for structural suitability.

12.45pm to 1.45pm

Break for Lunch

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Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Vilnius

This proposal for a museum and cultural centre in Vilnius was the winner of an international competition between Zaha Hadid Architects, Studio Daniel Libeskind and Studio Fuksas. The new centre for international art will house pieces from collections of both the New York based Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the St. Petersburg based State Hermitage Museum.

The museums sculptural volume is designed along Zaha Hadid’s characteristic conceptual terms of fluidity, velocity and lightness. The building appears like a mystical object floating above the extensive artificial landscape strip, seemingly defying gravity by exposing dramatic undercuts towards the surrounding entrance plazas. Large activated green fields flow around the museums sculptural mass, underlining its enigmatic presence with curvilinear lines echoing the elongated contours of the building. Contrasting with the vertical business district skyline it is a manifestation of Vilnius’ new cultural significance.

The design points towards a future architectural language matching the cultural aims of the new Hermitage Guggenheim Vilnius Project. It is part of an innovative research trajectory within ZHA that embraces latest digital design technology and digital fabrication methods. The application of advanced digital technology throughout the course of the project enables a seamless workflow from the fluid shapes of the drawing board to the realisation process. An innovative architectural language meets new technologies in order to articulate this project’s complexities. By means of ZHA’s characteristic dynamic acceleration curves and sculpted surface modulations the design expresses the project’s vision coherently.

1.45pm to 2.15pm

Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, VilniusBurnham Pavilion, ChicagoJens Borstelmann & Thomas Vietzke - Zaha Hadid Architects

Image © Zaha Hadid Architects

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Burnham Pavilion, Chicago

Zaha Hadid Architects participation in the Burnham Plan Centennial celebrations is a great opportunity to participate in Chicago’s ongoing tradition of bold plans and big dreams with an architectural design at the scale of a pavilion. Our design will echo Chicago’s cutting edge cultural and architectural landscape by introducing a new Zaha Hadid Pavilion Concept into Millennium Park.

The form of the pavilion is derived from the intersection of ellipsoids creating arching interior spaces that envelope the visitor flow. The structure is expressed via a series of diagonal sections that are in line with the historic axis of the unbuilt Plan of Chicago. These arching structural devices are erected along a gradient and therefore display areas of lesser density towards the centre of the pavilion in order to allow controlled daylight into the structure. The louvers in the ceiling underline the design intent of referring to the historic diagonal that cuts through the site and help to create a vivacious interior space that changes throughout the day according to sun angles and weather conditions. They appear like cuts in a canvas and cohere with the choice of material and construction method.

The pavilion is made from a light weight aluminium structure that is then “dressed” in a tensile fabric.   As fabric behaves in specific ways, once tensile forces are applied, the resulting exterior skin undulates in anticlastic curvatures along the guiding rails of the aluminium substructure. The aluminium ribs are deliberately expressed through the external skin.

In the pavilions interior the materiality corresponds with its exterior. The continuity of material allows for a coherent overall look and feel. Since the pavilion will serve as a display for projections layers of fabric are integrated in its interior walls that allow for front and back as well as for double projections taking place throughout the day. Layering of fabric and of images create visual highlights and involve the visitor in a unique overall experience. The superimposition of visual materials and the visitor within the pavilion leads to the integration of the pavilion, the visitor and the display. The pavilion becomes the display and the visitor becomes part of the image.

Image © Zaha Hadid Architects

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2.15pm to 2.45pm

Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Vilnius with Zaha Hadid ArchitectsShanghai Expo with Heatherwick StudioHeydar Aliyev Merkezi with Zaha Hadid ArchitectsSawako Kaijima and Panagiotis Michalatos - Adams Kara Taylor

Adams Kara Taylor closely collaborates with architects in taking on innovative projects, stretching the envelope of what is possible today within the realm of digital technologies. We will present projects where our Computational Design Consultancy team developed custom plug-ins for rhino with real time interactive interfaces in order to solve different problems faced in each project. The projects include Vilnius Cultural Museum [Zaha Hadid Architects], Shanghai Expo [Heatherwick Studio], Heydar Aliyev Merkezi [Zaha Hadid Architects], and our in-house research on “Structural Patterns”[AKT.]

The computational design team within p.art AKT focuses on designing the integration methods for various concerns raised by different parties [architect, structural engineer, environmental engineer, fabricator, etc] involved in architectural projects. We develop custom software for each project with interactive interface so as to facilitate communication between the entire team as well as between different software tools [architecture modeling software, FEM analysis software] employed for the project. Our aim is to bridge the existing gap between the parties by stretching the envelope of what is possible today within the realm of digital technologies and pragmatically addressing contemporary design, structure and construction goals.

Sawako Kaijima studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she received her Master's of Architecture. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Information majoring in Media Design from Keio University, Japan.

Panagiotis Michalatos studied Architecture at NTUA Athens Greece and graduated in 2001. He then went to Sweden to study at the art and technology course in Gothenburg a program jointly organized by Chalmers and IT-Universitet.

Image © Zaha Hadid Architects

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3.00pm to 3.30pm

Spencer Dock Bridge - Dublin[C]space DRL10 PavilionAlan Dempsey - NEX Architecture

Based in London at the centre of an international network of the world’s leading design consultants and specialists, Nex is a new breed of multi-disciplinary design office that focuses on the intersection between architecture, infrastructure and urban design, and pursues innovation both in its design processes and in the environments it creates. As a small office we often work in a collaborative team and the presentation will focus on two projects that have been recently completed.

Spencer Dock Bridge, Dublin.

Designed and delivered in collaboration with Future Systems this project is an in-situ and precast concrete structure that contains a landscape of vehicle, light rail, and generous pedestrian traffic. The edges of the structure curl down to reveal a space for pedestrians to pause and enjoy the views of the canal and the new linear park on either bank away from the immediate vicinity of the road. The presentation will discuss how constraint based modelling in Rhino was used to develop and manage the seamless geometry and manufacture the double curved formwork.

2.45pm to 3.00pm

Metroplitan WorksEd Alves - Technical Manager Metropolitan Works

Metropolitan Works, part of London Metropolitan University, is a unique centre that supports London’s creative industries and offers commercial services to design and architectural businesses. Ed Alves will give an overview of the latest digital manufacturing technologies available at Metropolitan Works. The facilities available include; rapid prototyping, laser cutting, 3D scanning, CNC routing and water jet cutting.

Image © Alan Dempsey

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[C]space DRL10 Pavilion, London & Singapore.

Designed and delivered in collaboration with Alvin Huang, Rieder and the AADRL, this project was the winning competition entry for a temporary pavilion to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Design Research Lab at the AA. The pavilion is a network lattice structure of thin fibre reinforced concrete panels and steel plate. Over 850 unique flat concrete elements are connected to produce a coherent curved form that merges floor, walls roof and furniture. The presentation will show how Rhino was used to constrain and parameterise a free-form model during successive iterations, and subsequently manage the generation of all fabrication and assembly information.

3.30pm to 3.45pm

Break for Refreshments

Image © Alan Dempsey

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3.45pm to 4.15pm

GrasshopperDavid Rutten - McNeel US

For architects and designers who are exploring new shapes using generative algorithms, Grasshopper is a graphical algorithm editor tightly integrated with Rhino’s 3D modelling tools. Unlike RhinoScript, Grasshopper requires no knowledge of programming or scripting, but still allows designers to build form generators from the simple to the awe inspiring. In this presentation, David will look at the latest developments of this inspiring software.

4.15pm to 4.30pm

VisualARQCristina Gomez Lvoff - Asuni CAD

This unique and fully integrated plug-in for Rhino offers a powerful feature based editor that allows you to easily create and edit smart/custom architectural objects. VisualARQ has an architecture specific toolset that makes the design and documentation process faster and easier to handle.

Image © AsuniCAD created with VisualARQ and Savanna3D rendered in Brazil for Rhino

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4.30pm to 5.00pm

SMART Modelling and Simulation ToolsPushing Boundaries with Rhino ProgrammingDr Shrikant Sharma, Robert Hart and Al Fisher - Buro Happold SMART Groip

SMART – Buro Happold’s team of innovators are able to continually deliver cutting edge and efficient solutions, thanks to the team’s specialised in-house suite of novel modelling and simulation tools. The team has developed several professional 3D graphical applications, many of which plug-in directly to commercial CAD or CAE applications such as Rhino 3D, AutoCAD, Digital Projects (CATIA), Robot, and Ansys. The presentation will cover some of these tools that push the boundaries through Rhino based programming. Live demos will cover applications that range from complex geometry optimisation (SMART Form) to crowd flow simulations (SMART Move).

Image © Buro Happold SMART Group

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5.00pm to 5.30pm

Q&A to all speakers

5.30pm to 8.00pm approx

Networking and DrinksMetropolitan Works

The evening reception will include a tour of Metropolitan Works which offers a wide range of professional Rapid Prototyping and Digital Manufacturing services to the Design and Architecture industries. These services include four rapid prototyping technologies, laser cutting, 5 axis CNC routing, water jet cutting and 3D scanning. On the tour you will see the stunning new £4.5 million building designed by Cartwright Pickard Architects, including it’s impressive workspaces and £2 million worth of state of the art rapid prototyping and digital manufacturing technology.

Evening Reception Address:The Showroom - London Metropolitan University41 Commercial RoadLondonE1 1LA

Copyright Notice

This document is Copyright of Simply Rhino Limited. Portions of the text are copyright of their respective authors and all images are copyright of their respective owners. This document may not be reproduced in whole or part in any form without prior permission from Simply Rhino Limited. Please direct any enquiries to media@simplyrhino.co.uk