Innochain exhibition starts today “Practice Futures – Building Design in a new material age” - KADK, Copenhagen

Aug 31-Dec 7

9.00 am-5.00 pm

KADK Exhibition Hall

Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51

1435 Copenhagen K

We invite you to the Innochain exhibition PRACTICE FUTURES: BUILDING DESIGN FOR A NEW MATERIAL AGE at KADK. Innochain is a European PhD network examining new potentials in digital design practice within architecture, engineering, IT, and fabrication. 

The exhibition showcases the results of 15 PhD projects from 6 institutions across Europe. With a strong industry focus, the PhDs are undertaken in collaboration with 14 cutting edge industry partners from across the interdisciplinary field. McNeel Europe S.L. is one of the official industrial partners.

Together we investigate the extended digital chain–the way that a shared digital platform can allow tools for analysis, fabrication and material design to interface so as to create new interdisciplinary methods and digital workflows for future building industry. Here you will see how:

• digital tools can make new use of traditional craft techniques
• resource aware optimization can lead to new structural designs
• shared digital platforms can lead to a new understanding of collaboration

Rhino, Grasshopper + Apps have been extensively used in all these PhD research projects.

The Innochain exhibition PRACTICE FUTURES is co-organised with the international conference PRACTICE FUTURES: Expanding information modelling for a new material age. The conference will take place at the Danish Architecture Centre, Nov 8-9, 2018. Registration to the conference is open now: http://innochain.net/conference/


Innochain Industry partners:
BIG, Bluhmer Lehmann, Buro Happold, Cloud 9, designtoproduction, Fibre, Foster Partners, HENN, McNeel Europe, ROK-Office, S-Form, Str.ucture, White Architects, Smith Innovation

Innochain Academic Partners:
The Bartlett School of Architecture - UCL, IOA - University of Applied Arts Vienna, CITA - The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, ITKE - University of Stuttgartt, IAAC, KTH School of Architecture

Complete details...

A conversation with concept phone designer Jonas Daehnert

Read Yanko Design's interview with Jonas Daehnert, phone and industrial designer.

Yanko Design is an online magazine dedicated to covering the best in international product design.

New Rhino course in Portland, OR

Join us in welcoming one of our new Authorized Rhino Trainers, Gary Dawson of Gary Dawson Designs. He will be conducting a Level 1 Rhino course next month at Portland Jewelry Academy.


Dates: September 19-21
Location: Portland, OR 
Price: US$750

The course consists of seven two-hour sessions. The first will be at Portland Jewelry Academy, the following six will be held as webinars. The class is intended for beginning to intermediate Rhino users, with a focus on modeling for jewelry. More... 


If you have questions or would like to register, contact Jason Chandler or call (503)-444-5623.

ACADIA2018 workshops have been announced!

October 15-17, 2018

UNAM University Museum of Arts & Sciences

Mexico City

The ACADIA2018 Workshops have been announced and are now online.

Register today!

Choose from:

• Flexible Formwork for Concrete Curves (Rhino, Grasshopper)
• Recalibrating Architectural Design Optimization (Rhino, Grasshopper, DIVA, Ladybug, Karamba, Galapagos, etc)
• Holographic-Analog-Controlled (HACd) Machines: Working with hand-operated tools within mixed reality environments (Rhino, Grasshopper, Fologram)

Details and registration...

Fractals Grasshopper plugin now available on food4Rhino

Now available on food4Rhino! Fractals is a free plugin for Grasshopper that helps you create three different types of mathematically generated fractals: L-System, Sunflower, and DLA.

To download Fractals...

Grasshopper and ShapeDiver help create 3D printed prosthetics for kids!

The Project

As you'll see in the video, SuperGiz is a different type of prosthetic device. It wasn't meant to mimic an exact human hand but rather to be extremely useful in very specific situations, like playing basketball or eating. You'll also learn about one of the first kids, Hector, who is already using a SuperGiz prosthetic. 

Hector and Israel

For years Hector's father Israel tried searching for viable alternatives that could help his son overcome a genetic challenge. Then he met the team of Autofabricantes and MediaLab Prado. After several iterations, they came up with the SuperGiz concept which they hope can help revolutionize the affordable prosthetic world for many families out there.

Complete story and ShapeDiver model...

Last call for entries - Reshape

Reshape 18| Sensing Materialities Competition

Entries due August 31st

Through their online platform Reshape promotes research, design, and production of digital ideas, exploring implications and applications of technology and innovation. Reshape 18 | Sensing materialities is focused on customized garments or products, promoting healthy living for individuals in everyday life.

Annually Reshape launches a competition organized by Noumena in collaboration with IN(3D)USTRY From Needs to Solutions and Fira Barcelona to foster the use and adoption of additive and advanced manufacturing on wearable and product design. This year's forum is October 16-18.

Designers, makers, and artists are invited to submit their ideas and design proposals for the Reshape challenge.

Submit your design before August 31st!...

Para Guru 2018 Symposium + Ladybug Workshops

Para Guru 2018

Symposium + Ladybug Tool Workshops

3-10 November (Melbourne) + 12-17 November (Sydney)

With Ladybug tools, Swinburne University and the University of New South Wales are hosting Para Guru 2018, an event in Melbourne and Sydney in November.

The Para Guru Symposium + Ladybug Tool Workshops aim to promote the adoption of parametric modeling in architectural, engineering and academic communities by bringing together local and international Para Gurus to geek it out and share their experiences and challenges.

More information and to register...

Introduction to Generative Jewelry Design course, NYC

Grasshopper - Introduction to Generative Jewelry Design

Saturday-Sunday, October 6-7, 2018

New York, NY

Price: US$495

Enroll today! 

This two-day class will give you a functional understanding of Grasshopper concepts and parametric design. Learn and explore how Grasshopper generates unprecedented fluidity and automated tasks to go further in the design process, allowing for much greater speed working on complicated and repeating forms. Grasshopper creates parametric modeling to automate production, new forms, shapes, patterns and your interfaces. It is only possible with the algorithmic modeling.

No knowledge of programming or scripting required for designers to build form generators, from the simple to the grand and awe-inspiring designs. The class covers List management and introduces Date Trees. 
Prerequisite: Basic Rhino knowledge is required. 


Participants will work on jewelry projects. However, design professionals from all industries can benefit from this class.

Required: PC laptop with Rhino 5 and the latest Grasshopper installed. 

About the instructor:
Akiyo Matsuoka is an Authorized Rhino Trainer and adjunct faculty at Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC.

Register...

Droid now on food4Rhino

Droid is a free 3D printing Grasshopper plugin library add-on that offers control over model slicing, custom paths, and Gcode generation.

Droid allows control over conventional slicing features, such as infill, shell thickness and caps, within the Rhino and Grasshopper environment. Also, output and editing of paths are available once models are sliced into the Rhino and Grasshopper workspace, allowing full control and analysis.

Custom or edited paths can then be input back into Droid for Gcode preparation and generation.

With Droid, you can prepare and print models in a Plug and Play style with Droid components. Or opt for a more controlled and experimental manner with custom input and output print paths.

Droid can use various printing devices, from small desktop 3D printers to large robotic fabricators.

Learn more and download Droid on food4rhino...

Reviving Tacoma's wooden dome

The renovation of the Tacoma Dome, in Tacoma, Washington, United States, is now underway. When measured by volume, the Tacoma Dome is the largest wooden dome arena in the world.

More than 25 million people have enjoyed world-class entertainment and events at the Tacoma Dome for the last 35 years. This summer, the dome will be enhanced with more than $30 million in capital improvements.

The dome structure and new upgraded seating layout were modeled in Rhino for 3D-review and visualization. The model walk-through is a short clip by DIG showing the model build-up.

Model walk-through in a time-lapse rendering

SudoHopper3D Teacher's Guide

To help you learn Grasshopper, McNeel Miami has created SudoHopper3D, a card game to improve the overall understanding of parametric thinking. SudoHopper3D playfully takes you on a journey through mathematics, algorithms, and basic coding. 

Level 1 provides the players with 32 assignments to write definitions. To help educators facilitate learning for their students, we have provided a Teacher's Guide that works as a "cheat sheet" and has the definitions for all assignments. 

Download the Teacher's Guide to get access to all Level 1 definitions here! 

The card game consists of 126 cards for Level 1. Players have the option to download the free PDF file that comes with all the cards needed for playing SudoHopper3D. Or they can order the physical cards online from here.

We also recommend that players rent the Level 1 videos from our Vimeo On Demand page. These videos will show you different ways to write the definition to solve each assignment. The videos are available in either English or Spanish.

Check out this video of students playing SudoHopper3D!

For more information, please contact Andres Gonzalez.

What is a RhinoFabStudio? A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

Optimizing multiple design variables with Karamba

Analysis of principal stresses and deformations of a cantilevered beam

Architects Patricio Llordella and Juan Fostel and engineer Jorge Farez recently collaborated on the design of a single-family home in Hudson, Argentina.

They used parametric modeling to study the combination of the structural and architectural parameters. Karamba was paired with Zirkel, an in-house developed multiple objective optimization tool, to develop the design to meet the architectural and structural design needs. 

More details on the design of the Vierendeel House...

3D printing and concrete

Benjamin Dillenburger, a professor for Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich, has created this video on the hot topic of 3D printing and concrete.

He is printing the concrete framework using complex geometries and creating lightweight, prefabricated concrete slabs.

Watch the video of prefabricating a light concrete roof...

New HVAC plugin: Ironbug beta

Ladybug Tools has introduced a new HVAC plugin, Ironbug. These HVAC components in Ironbug broaden the current Honeybee energy modeling’s ability. Ironbug now brings the OpenStudio’s full HVAC modeling capability to Grasshopper.

More information on Ladybug's HVAC plugin...

King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture by Snøhetta

King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

In an invitational 2007 architectural design competition, Snøhetta was selected to design this new cultural facility.

King Abdulaziz for World Culture contains diverse cultural facilities, including an auditorium, cinema, library, exhibition hall, museum, and archive.

With every steel element having a unique length and shape, Rhino with Grasshopper and Python scripting proved valuable in the project.

See more details in ArchDaily...

Scan&Solve for Rhino 6 released

Scan&Solve Pro for Rhino 6 has been released!

Scan&Solve Pro allows structural simulation of bonded assemblies consisting of any collection of solid geometry (polysurfaces, extrusions, meshes) within Rhino 6. It also supports advanced material models such as wood and bonded orthotropic composites. Now offering perpetual licenses in addition to affordable subscription licenses!

To download...

"Instancia" wins at the XII Salón del Agua in Colombia

Congratulations to Ramón Galvis Centurión for his artwork Instancia which won first place within 158 participating works in the category Other Visual Manifestations at the XII Salón del Agua in Cúcuta, Colombia.

Instancia is an artwork which captures the significant moment in the flow of a dynamic body of water. It helps give form to the intangible and movement within a static object.

The piece was designed using Rhino, Grasshopper, and Bowerbird. It was manufactured with special laser cutting machines to ensure that the pieces that made up the waffle structure were cut precisely and accurately. It was designed to be displayed suspended from the ceiling or exhibited raised 1.2 meters above the floor.  

Follow Ramón on social media: Instagram and Facebook!

For more information please contact
Ramón Galvis Centurión

What is a RhinoFabStudio? A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.

Marine Design Workshop: Orca3D + ExpressMarine at McNeel Europe (Barcelona)

Marine Design Workshop: Orca3D + ExpressMarine by Stéphane Dardel

October 22-24, 2018

10.00h-18.00h

McNeel Europe S.L.

Roger de Flor, 32-34 bajos

08018 Barcelona (Spain)

Join us for a 3-day Orca3D + ExpressMarine workshop, co-organized by McNeel Europe and Nick Danese Applied Research, at McNeel Europe’s Barcelona offices, October 22-24.

Orca3D is a naval architecture plugin for hull design, hydrostatics intact stability, performance prediction, and weight tracking.

ExpressMarine, now in its version 2, enables ship designers to build up parametric 3D models of marine structures rapidly. The main advantage of the plugin is a dramatic reduction of modeling time, but more fundamentally, it allows the development of the 3D structural model very early in the design process.

In this three-day workshop participants acquire an in-depth understanding of the scopes of Orca3D and ExpressMarine. They go through hands-on exercises, from initial hull design, foundations of fairing techniques, hull fairness assessment, hydrostatics, and stability checks, to creating a parametric structural model with ExpressMarine. Discover the synergy offered by these complementary plugins, for example through the automatic update of the structural model from an updated Orca3D hull form.


Day 1

• Orca3D properties 
• Rhino refresher: modeling aids, Gumball, geometry edition 
• Hull assistants 
• Foundations of modeling and fairing techniques 
• NURBS theory 
• Point control 
• Surface analysis 

Day 2

• Hydrostatic calculations 
• Stability with criteria verification 
• Performance prediction 
• Weight tracking 
• Orca3D to ExpressMarine 
• ExpressMarine modeling environment and GUI 
• Modeling: Start from scratch 

Day 3

• Shell node 
• Stiffeners 
• Cutouts and openings 
• Custom objects 
• Outputs 
• Interface to ShipWeight

Course Requirements: Although open to all, the course is more directly intended for ship designers/ naval architects, professional and academic.
Reasonable proficiency with Rhino is expected from participants.
Any modern PC running Rhino 6 will be ok in the context of the training workshop.

Software Licenses: Orca3D and ExpressMarine licenses can be provided free for the duration of the training.

Course Fee: EUR 795 (+VAT). Full-time students and university teachers (proof of status required) will get a 50% discount. Please note that your seat is only confirmed once the payment is cleared. 

Maximum Number of Participants: 10 participants. If there is no quorum, the course will be canceled 15 days before.

Language: English

Educational seats are limited. Sign up now by contacting McNeel Europe here.

Innochain international conference "Expanding information modelling for a new material age" - Copenhagen (Denmark) - November 8-9, 2018

Innochain announces the international conference Expanding information modelling for a new material age. 

It will take place in Copenhagen on November 8-9, 2018, at the Danish Architecture Centre in the new BLOX building by OMA. 

The conference is organized in collaboration with the Danish BLOXHUB organization and aims to create a forum for transdisciplinary and entrepreneur driven research. 

The conference asks:

• What’s at stake when advanced computation and fabrication enter architecture?
• How can research advance practice?
• What are the models for embedded research?

The conference uses open formats to foster debate and exchange. Keynotes from leading industry innovators will shape and guide the discussion.

A central part of the conference is ten presentations of innovative projects, that showcase results from new types of collaborations between “research in practice” and “research in academia”. Innochain invites individuals and teams to submit proposals. Selected presentations and conference content will be invited to develop extended papers and content for the Innochain book “Expanding information modelling for a new material age” published by UCL press.

Conference Call (deadline August 19)

Information modelling challenges the way we think, design and build architecture. By creating a shared digital platform, a new hybrid practice emerges in which otherwise separate tools and methodologies of design, analysis, and fabrication can intersect. Current design practice is invested in the prototyping of these new methodologies. Across the building industry and in research there is a collective push for understanding how this new digital chain can be structured, what are productive exchanges and how a new sense of feedback can lead to smarter design solutions.

The future of the information model is at stake. Expanding simple BIM with more complex requirements to engage and capitalize on analysis, to steer multi objective design spaces and to interface and control fabrication necessitates new kinds of representations that can handle data-rich design inquiries, enable collaboration and manage the complex and cyclical nature of feedback.

Basic Data

2-day conference November 8-9, 2018,  BLOX, Danish Architectural Centre.
1-day Bloxhub pre-conference workshop: November 7, 2018, BLOXHUB space.

Complete details and registration...