This was my second trial at using sketchup dynamic components for parametric form finding.  (for my first see here)

This time the component was based around an idea of a mechanical iris opening and closing.  So each floor of the tower is actually the same five triangles making up the same area.  The tower contracts and expands like a mechanical iris – the triangles rotating and moving in and out to maintain edge contact.  The basis of this movement is actually a fairly simple piece of trig’ (see below).  The amount any particular floor is unfurled (expressed in degrees of rotation of each piece) is controlled by the parameters in three ways, first a base unfurl added to all floors, second an incremental unfurl (the factor is multiplied by the floor number) and third using a sine wave to create a bulge/ bulges.  As long as the rotation of each piece stays below approx 85 degrees contact between all the pieces in maintained.

The sketchup file is available at the 3d warehouse. Please do download it, fiddle with it, see what it can make (by changing the components options), reverse engineer it.  If you find it useful please drop me a line.

As this was my second attempt I found less trouble working around the some-what odd way sketchup sometimes makes each instance of a dynamic component unique or the way you can only edit one level into a tree of components using the ‘component attributes’ tool.  Sketchup was however struggling at times to calculate these towers which I found worrying as I don’t consider them particularly complicated models.  Also while I considered making a second version of this component which started by dividing a circle into n segments I could not work out how to get the dynamic component system to draw a segment of a circle or adjust one so that it would fill so many degrees of a circle.  This seemingly simple task completely beating my application of this system.  These frustrations mean that while I do still believe there is potential in using sketchup for this kind of work I will be saving up my pennies to get a copy of rhino so I can try out grasshopper instead.

My Other Sketchup Experiments

This is one of a series of trials I carried out to investigate the possibilities of Google Sketchup 7′s new dynamic component feature.

This model of a neighbourhood is made of four top level components, the perimeter block, the street, the junction and the park.  The variation in each of these components is achieved dynamically, by altering controlling parameters (in component options) such as block depth, floor to floor height, or ‘funky factor’ or by simply scaling the component to a new size.  It would be easy to keep duplicating and slightly varying the pattern to create a large city. (although the resulting model’s complexity would probably quickly start to strain your sketchup).

You can access the model through the 3D warehouse at http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=df671992d5a8620f1b3b6fb11f3d476f please feel free to download it, play with it, explore it, use the components to make new neighbourhoods …

The park component splits a plane into ‘pixel squares’ and then positions these vertically based on sine curves to create mounds and dips.  The materials of each ‘pixel’ is a function of its height.

The perimeter block component is probably the most ‘useful’ of the components in this model.  It certainly has application in any situation where perimeter blocks need to be drawn.  Its basic control parameters included floor to floor height, slab depth, building depth. An extra parameter controls the spiky balconies which was an easy way to add extra variation for this trial but if set to 0  then these extraneous balconies are removed.

A simpler version of just the perimeter block is also available on the 3D warehouse here. Please feel free to use it in your own rough urban scale models.

The streets are completely controlled using the scale tool the layout of lanes etc. is a function of the street’s width and the introduction of pedestrian crossings a function of its length.

The crossroads component allows any to street widths to be joined at right angles and it has a flip parameter to make sure the carriage way matches up as the street creates asymmetric patterns depending on its width.

The positioning of people within each street is an adaptation of Trainer Mark’s crowd control component.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my work.  Please do comment.

My Other Sketchup Experiments

The tower is a dynamic component made of other nested dynamic components. Its form can be altered by changing values in a dialogue box, spatial inputs such as grab handles, and by calculation and maths.  This has obvious use in situations where models are being made to test or find forms and also allows situations where design team members who are not experienced modellers can try out different parameters on their own.

This ‘family’ of six tower forms where generated by altering either the numeric or drop down options in the component option menu (on the right) or by stretching the components height using the grab handle.  Each time the user changes an input Sketchup redraws the component to refit the new options selected.  Certain options are reserved for example you might notice in each tower one ‘strand’ is set further out than the others this is not editable whilst the component is being used in the free version of Sketchup (and as I only had a trial version I can no longer edit it at all)

please feel free to access the Sketchup file at:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=6e09a302047cc87bebfd8afd73291d04

play around with it, use it for your own ends, but please credit me if you use it for anything.

I think this process certainly has definite applications for use as a form finder during design discussion and experimentation. It has obvious limits and as such would never replace for example GC as it is limited by the geometries and control options available in sketchup.

One major flaw I found during this exercise was the way in which sketchup duplicates the components nested inside, in that it creates a new definition for each one. This stops you from being able to edit the general definition.  I.e. each circular deck was created as versions of one component but I could no longer change that component to a square and expect them to all update as they are no longer linked in this way.  This means that any model in this style must be created in sequence from the smallest component up and you cant go back and change the smaller components without first breaking down all the larger ones.

My Other Sketchup Experiments

Support from the ‘Tillidh Mi Dhachaidh’ project allowed me to spend time in Wester Ross in September 2009.  I used the opportunity to explore artistic practice as a technique for investigating my research interests in walking the landscape as architecture (it’s symbolic construction).

Landscape is ‘an area as perceived by people’.

The act of walking land creates landscape.

Instead of the non-participatory tone of the much used ‘leave only footprints, take only photographs’ this work was interested in examining and making explicit the participation of the walker in the landscape.

‘Leave only photographs‘ recorded a walk revisiting the stomping ground of my childhood in Leckmelm.   The photographs make physical the view of the landscape as seen from the perspective of the walker in the place as it was seen. Added to the reverse of these are notes expanding upon the viewpoint of the walker (some ‘baggage’).  These artefacts were left in the landscape further photos of them returned to the gallery.

- prints of this work are available  -

This set of four posters  “dragon hunting – dundee“  document and illustrate a walk undertaken in dundee on the 16th of June 2009.  The walk was part of a larger project exploring the dundee landscape.  Thanks to the support of the Martin Jones Award which made this study possible.

It was concerned with exploring the entanglement with myth in the landscape. It traced out the route of a battle with the dundee dragon as described in the rhyme:

‘tempit at pitempton,

draigled at baldragon

stricken at strathmartin

and kill’d at martins stone’

The story goes that the dragon after slaying nine maiden sisters was killed by a local hero called martin.

The posters combine the myth (words) , a view of the places on the day of the walk (photographs) and their geographic co-ordinates (os grid references).

-   prints of this work are available   -

As a part 2 assistant at RMJM I was able to be involved in several main projects in the office and a whole series of other bids, competitions …

The opportunity to work on the proposed renovation of RMJM’s own buildings at Bell’s Brae when I first started back was an excellent opportunity for me to learn more about the company and discuss design ideas with people at all levels of the company.

Working on a series of urbanism projects including framework documents for university of edinburgh’s king’s buildings campus has helped my find new direction beyond thinking about buildings.

I enjoyed the opportunities to engage over short periods with a whole series of competition and bid work.

As a member of the oktha base buildings team I was able to learn a lot about managing such a huge project. I was able to improve upon my C.A.D. standardisation skills, my scheduling skills and my team work skills particularly. The project team was split over offices and countries providing a challenge for all members of the team to work together to meet tough deadlines.

caupsummerschoolcatalouge

—

Here is the group 5 process book. It contains all the presentations we used during the process of the project and images of us at work.

suzhou-river-process-book-group-5

In the Summer of 2008 Tongji University brought together 50 design students from top design schools across the globe.  The challenge was layed down to produce urban proposals for an area of central Shanghai.  Working in 5 teams of 10 the summer school set out to explore the backstreets and alleys of this Shanghai neighbourhood.  We were able to appreciate the beauty in what we found existing on the site.

Team 5 was given the initial theme of ‘advertising’.  We were Chiyu Chen (Royal College of Art), Ian Ruaraidh Harrison (University of Dundee), Yiying Lu (University of Technology, Sydney), Lesley McIntyre (University of Dundee),  Alice Mela (Politecnico of Turin), Dominik Premauer (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Lobke Rozemarjin (MAHKA Utrecht), Aurora Rapalino (Politecnico of Turin), Yiting Wang (UCLA), Gabriel Wartofsky (Art Centre College of Design), Min Zhang (Tongji University).  We came from countries across the world and from disciplines as varied as architecture, industrial design and media arts.  We found a shared set of values, approaches and manifestos.

As a group we found a deep appreciation of the place that we had been given to transform and so we reshaped our mission to use techniques taken from advertising (especially guerilla advertising) to give a voice to the place.

The group began this recognition process by finding a name for the community. Fascinated with the number graffiti ads common in the area, we combined both the cultural (Suzhou River Area) and geographical (coordinates of area on a map) identities of this area into one logo.

We then set out to engage with the inhabitants of the place to find ways to bring out the ‘voice of the place’.  Applying a synaesthetic process we identified different ways in which communication through advertising media might work and then developed project components to deal with each.

Based on the lessons learned during this process we proposed a new product which could act in the same way to improve communication between designers/decision-makers and inhabitants/ users.  Emõtool is a bracelet that allows people to take pictures and record sounds to express their likes and dislikes.  An auditory interface questions the decisions of the user to allow the information to be used as a research tool for designers.

The level of excellence in the project was recognised by the 2008 Shanghai Biennalle International Student Exhibition who awarded the Tongji CAUP Summer Camp their top exhibition prize.

more info and process pics

exhibition catalogue

I have an A grade Advanced Higher in Computing (2001) for which I specialised in Data Communications and designed a web-based interpretation tool for the local museum.

I am proficient in applications in a range of Areas:

Office

I am comfortable with a range of office type GPPs.

Text editors – I am an experienced word user and currently I also regularly use iWork’s Pages and OpenOffice’s writer

Powerpoint and Keynote – I have a great deal of experience from practice and from study using both Micorsoft’s Powerpoint and Keynote (the Apple iWork equivalent).  I also recently discovered Prezi which I found to be an invaluable presentation tool.

Excel and Access – I used Excel in practice with RMJM for the preparation and presentation of area and cost information. Although I haven’t used access to develop a new database since 2001 I still feel comfortable as a user for example I used it recently to access archived information.

Endnote – I recently attending training and am currently using EndNote as my bibliographic package

Computer Aided Design

AutoCad – I have been using AutoCad since 2000. I gained greatly in experience when using it in practice for both RMJM and Ushida-Findlay.

ArchiCad – I have some experience with ArchiCad. I used it for my BA project at university.

SketchUp – I am a proficient user of Sketchup using it in practice for RMJM and for some of the modeling of my Master’s Thesis Project.  I am also now versed in creating dynamic components and have some fairly limited experience of writing ruby scripts.

Artlantis and Podium- I have used both Artlantis and Podium render packages to get better quality output from Sketchup models.

Generative Components – I was lucky to be able to attend training on Bentley’s parametric extension to microstation during my Masters Year and was able to apply this within my masters thesis project.

ArcGIS- Since developing my interests in mapping I have spent time to learn ArcGIS and was lucky to have the input of Richard Legates to help me achieve this.

Graphics

I have been using Adobe graphics packages since 1999 and before

Photoshop – I have greatest expertise with Photoshop which I have been using since high school  including in practice for RMJM.

Illustrator – I was first introduced to illustrator in practice for RMJM in 2005 and have continued using it since then.

InDesign and Pagemaker – Previous to 2005 I had primarily used pagemaker for desktop publishing but after gaining experience with InDesign in practice I am continuing to expand my proficiency with it.

GoLive and WordPress- I used GoLive to develop websites both personally and during my Advanced Higher course. I have not used this much in recent years and I have not kept up with the Adobes recent swap to Dreamweaver. My current website is maintained using the the wordpress editor because of its convenience.

Ushida Findlay was an exciting and creative environment to work in.  During this period I was preparing to enroll as a research student and so worked on a part-time basis.