Another interesting project from the guys of PROJECTiONE , myLight is a DIY lamp shade available for sale, I think this is a great example of how creative people can create their own business models and sell their own products skipping all intermediaries in the process an at the same time create more compelling products for customers .

My light is based in the Lightforms project. The profile curve of the shade is first generated in Rhinoceros and can be customized to any shape. A Grasshopper script interprets this curve, determines the number of components needed, and lays out each simple component with its necessary intersections. The “Teardrop” is their first model  available for sale but they have announced more will come in the future.

myLight from PROJECTiONE on Vimeo.

Project Description (from site)

myLight is a “Do It Yourself” luminaire intended to provide a user with a memorable experience and appreciation for design and fabrication. Made from durable mylar, myLight is hand assembled by the user following a video as a guide. The object becomes more than simply a store-bought lamp as the user is involved in its production and takes pride in its assembly. PROJECTiONE is focused on process in conjunction with final results. myLight shares this experience directly with users. The visual complexity of the laser cut system adds to its beauty while the simple method and repetition of assembly makes it easy and fun to build. We hope the process can be a shared experience for multiple users gathered around a single myLight.

UDON , Madrid project was recently completed by architects Quim Girbau & Neus Mateu. For the design of the ceiling architects consulted Medio design and LAN for the implementation of parametric design and digital fabrication.

The ceiling elements were cut from Alucobond by CNC, it was an experiment in form and optimization. Rather than extracting the ribs from a free form surface which represented a 30% of material waste , they inspired in the work of Andrew Kudless’ Zero/Fold Screen.,and by constraining the overall geometry and implementing simple trigonometric functions, they were able to reduce material waste to 5% overall as well as dramatically decrease production time by 50%.As a result they obtained a very plastic and expressive form and great results in terms of time, waste and cost optimization.

Project Architect: Quim Girbau & Neus Mateu

Design Consultation and Fabrication: Medio Design

Parametric Design and Geometry Consultation: @LaN_Luis – LaN

Chelsea Xpo Pavilion Project is directed by Cyril Shing, Senior Lecturer of BA Interior Spatial Design (ISD) in collaboration with Yiching Liu (Platform 2 Tutor), Daniel Piker (creator of Kangaroo – physics engine for Grasshopper) and Platform 2 final year students. The pavilion marks the achievements of Platform 2’s idea of digital creativity and addresses issues of sustainability through consideration of the use of materials and the development fabrication processes.

The project were set and work with different disciplines including textile designer, materials engineer , programming engineering to explore platform agenda. This collaborative exercise also allows students and researchers to be able to question a number of design issues. E.g. the sustainability concerns, method of production and use of materials.

The pavilion is sponsored by Speedo and is constructed using 200 LZR Racer swimming suits wich due to recent changes in rules for competition couldn´t be used for competition , resulting in a remarkable structure. The project objective was to re-use this product, the LZR racer as an architectural component to think about the sustainability approaches in the design and fabrication process. With the integration of digital technology.

The pavilion is located at the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground which is opposite to the Tate Britain on Atterbury Street, SW1. It is part of this year’s Chelsea College undergraduate summer show and London Festival of Architecture 2010.

Mensa is an altar made for the restoration of the Antica Chiesa Plebana, a XV century church located in S. Maurizio Canavese (To). The project was developed by the artist Elio Garis in collaboration with craftsman Bruno De Masi and Co-De -It a computational design research studio that were in charge of operating as a mediator between the digital realm of the information model and the physical sculptural aspects of the project by translating the initial design into a coarse fabricated model in plywood.

Description (from the site)

When it comes to the use and implementation of digital strategies and tools one of the most common temptations is digital exhaustion: the project starts and becomes perfect in the digital realm. According to this obsession the digital outcome takes command and dictates the rules to which all material aspects should be subjected. Emergence material effects and any kind of post-machine work is seen as a flaw in a search for a fully file-to-factory process. Another common temptation which usually pairs the one we just described is the pursue of digital perfection: since digital tools allow accuracy and precision extreme specificity is often seen (and not without reasons) as a goal or an improvement. These are the case that serve optimization for iterative production, but we think that this shouldn’t be a universal rule.

Digital strategies and tools in our mind are not a substitute of all existing tools and techniques, rather they have their own specificity; they integrate and expand the existing set, adding new extended potential and novel possibilities to it. Substitution happens when the new tool is not only performing the same tasks than the old one but also adds new or improved qualities (performance in speed, accuracy, variation, added features, etc.).

This is an exploration of the territory that lies in-between the digital and the physical realm, using the digital as a resource to amplify the expressive palette of an artist (Elio Garis) working in tight connection with a craftsman (Bruno De Masi, we already worked with him for the Bosco project) for the design and realization of Mensa, an altar which should enrich the restoration of the Antica Chiesa Plebana, a XV century church in S. Maurizio Canavese (To). The design was conceived by Elio Garis, then developed by Bruno De Masi under his guidance, while Co-de-iT operated as a mediator between the digital realm of the information model and the physical sculptural expressive potential, translating the initial design into a coarse fabricated model in plywood. The model was purposely kept coarse to allow a final physical interaction by the artist in order to let him orchestrate material properties and effects according to his sculptural sensibility and experience.

Sculptural sensibility is not a pure hylomorphic process. There is an intensive logic underneath, something that is even more evident in pottery making, where the potter should constantly interact with material properties in order to tease a shape out of clay: temperature, finger pressure, rotational speed of the plate, humidity are all intensively interacting at the same time and directed by the artist’s sculptural sensibility. To that extent, this project explores vagueness as a quality that could be implemented through digital tools: sculptors often take inspiration from pieces of material, guided by vibrant sensibilities they feel resonance and envision a potential to be disclosed.

Our contribution with the digital tools is to explore through generative strategies a wide range of rule-based vague forms that can be coupled (according to material and fabrication logics) to several material palettes and let the final part of their morphogenetic process to be directed by the artist’s material sensibility.

Collaborative cloud  has the objective of getting people in contact with the concept of open fabrication,  besides the DIY initiative and local fabrication , collaborative  cloud offers the idea off  sharing design , tools and concepts.

Please take a look at the application they have designed for submit your design is very fun and easy to use.

Description (from LAN site)
Collaborative Cloud is an installation which investigates distributed and decentralized design and fabrication. The interfaceallows you to design and give information to a piece of the cloud, thus anyone can participate in the project’s growth over the next 8 months. The physical construction will take place at the Disseny Hub Barcelona (DHUB) in an exhibition titled: LABORATORI DE FABRICACIÓ:Nous escenaris del disseny i la producció tridimensional.
The Collaborative Cloud is a project created by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (iaac.net), organized by the DHUB, and designed by Luis E. Fraguada (LAN), Victor Viña, Areti Markopoulou, and YOU!

The project was designed using processing for the interface, and GH / Rhnoscript for geometry and population. Once a user submits a design, the interface outputs a data file as well as a PDF of the piece ready for fabrication. As the database grows, these files are matched with a potential position on the cloud.

The plugin for rhino comes with several components performing different functions  like exporting mesh geometries  to ecotect , incident solar radiation analysis etc.. , I haven’t tried it yet hope to have some time this week to make a more complete post explaining how it actually works anyway this are great news for all Grasshopper enthusiasts .

Component List:

-EcoLink

-EcoMeshExport

-EcoSolCal

-EcoSolRequest

-EcoGridRequest

-EcoLua

-EcoDayOfYear

GH2Ecotect from [uto] on Vimeo.

File Name: DiagridCladdingBoxes.ghx

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Workshop Rhino / Grasshopper

Curso destinado principalmente a Arquitectos y Diseñadores interesados en el aprendizaje  del diseño parametrico y la creación de algoritmos generativos para su implementacion en distintos processos de diseño ,s e explicaran los conceptos teoricos para abordar   proyectos de diseño a través de algoritmos mediante programación. Se utilizara el entorno de Grasshopper y Rhinoscript como herramientas para desarollar los ejercicios . No es necesario conocimiento previo de Rhinoceros ni de programación.

Fecha y Lugar
Mayo 28, 29 ,20  y Junio 4,5,6
Instalaciónes Plataforma de Arquitectura (151-SA)

Cupo maximo
15 plazas

Costo
Estudiantes : $ 2,500.ºº
Profesionistas: $ 3,000.ºº

Importante
*Los participantes deberan traer su propia laptop con todo el software y actualizaciones (originales o verisones de demostración oficiales) previamente instaladas.(se fijara una fecha unos días antes para revisar que todos los equipos esten en orden y listos para trabajar)

Proceso de Inscripción
El participante debera pagar la matricula haciendo un deposito bancario a la cuenta que aparece a continuación.
Banco:Banamex
Nombre:Daniel Camiro Salgado
No.Cuenta:5204 1670 5605 3697
CLABE(transferencia interbancaria):002010437100818177

Una vez que el deposito se haya llevado acabo el participante debera enviar a cualquiera de estos dos correos electronicos: rodrigo@designplaygrounds.com – chidostudio@gmail.com la siguiente información.
-Nombre Completo
-Email
-Telefono
-Institución Educativa u Oficina
-Archivo adjunto de la copia del recibo del deposito bancario

En cuanto se reciban los datos inmediatamente nos pondremos en contacto para especificar los siguientes pasos a seguir.

Imagenes del Workshop anterior

CHIDO STUDIO + PLATAFORMA ARQUITECTURA WORKSHOP from chido studio on Vimeo.

Organizado en conjunto con:

Often we tend to think that parametric design is for the exclusive use of complex projects with lots of variables and complicated morphologies, here is a simple example of how this methodologies can be also very helpful in more simple and traditional design processes.

The main part of the definition made for this project for creating diagrid patterns is available for download.
Don´t forget subscribing my RSS or follow me @Rodrigo_Medina to keep updated for similar projects.

File Name:DiagridCladdingSurface.ghx

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Some weeks ago Andy Payne from Lift Architects announced the release of his first version plugin Firefly which is a specialized set of tools dedicated to bridging the gap between the Arduino interface and Grasshopper , currently the plugin has two components one for receiving data coming from sensors and the other to send parametric data from grasshopper to some sort of actuator via Arduino.

I think Firefly is a great tool for prototyping projects that involve sensors and actuators , because before you actually build it, with this tool you can first model a digital muck up to see how your project elements will behave with real sensor data, so then you can port that same logic to build your real project.

Here is an experiment I made sending data from a photoresistor to Grasshopper to create a Responsive Structure that reacts to the degree of light of a physical space in real time.
What you need:
-Arduino Board
-1K Resistor
-Photoresistor
-LED

(sorry about the crappy picture I had to use my webcam)
You have to start by making your Arduino Hookup and writing a code in the Arduino environment so you can retrieve the value of the photoresistor which measures the amount of light in a room and then send it to the board , in this case I wanted that when the amount of light is low an LED started to turn on and that the intensity of it also varies depending the amount of light .

So for the hookup the photoresistor and 1K resistor are hooked up in series. Arduino +5V goes to the photoresistor and ground goes to the 1K resistor. The junction where the photoresistor and the 1K meet is where Arduino pin #5 goes (picture Above).

Next step is write a code in the Arduino environment were we take an analog reading being send from the photoresistor to our board and then send that value to our output which in this case is digital pin11 which is the position of our LED , I made some annotations to the Arduino code to make it more easy to understand.

Arduino Test from Rodrigo Medina on Vimeo.
The last part would be porting the data from arduino to Grasshopper , here is were Firefly comes into action , actually is very easy to use once you install the plugin you´ll se two more components added which are the Serial Read and Serial Write.

In this case as we want to import data from Arduino we are going to use the Serial Read component which has three inputs , the first one is to define if we want the port that transfer data open or closed, you will like to have an integer slider that goes from 0 to 1 to control this easily, remember to have it always at cero before yo start the timer, the second input is for indicating the computer the serial port you are working on which in my case was  COM3 but it depends on the serial USB ports of each computer you can check with which port you are working by opening your Arduino code , then going to the menu Tools and were it says Serial Port you´ll see the one that the Arduino board is using , the last input of the component is the Baud Rate which controls the speed and it should match the one you are using in Arduino apparently the standard is 9600 so I used that one.

Besides that the rest goes pretty straight forward using the common tools of Grasshopper , have I also included some notes in the definition to help you out.

Arduino + Grasshopper & Firefly from Rodrigo Medina on Vimeo.

As always let me know if you have any problems the best way to catch me is by twitter @Rodrigo_Medina

Files Names
Arduino Code:GH3D_FireflyExperiment.pde
Grasshopper Definition:Arduino + Firefly experiment.ghx

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