“Self-formation” and “Natural Constructions” are subjects that need a great deal of commitment. Research into them needs strong collective leadership. It is endangered if the researchers involved think exclusively of their own narrow subject area, if they forget that they must always see things as a whole. Work on the subject of “Natural Constructions” goes on. What has been done so far is only a tiny part of what has to be done. The most important, as yet still provisional, result is a new interpretation of life’s origin and the acquisition of form. Future work requires insights into the formation of objects, of emergence from an unordered state, of creation. It must occur through objective, level-headed research with a clear aim. “

The authors discuss the application of the optimal form in architecture:

Natural structures are optimized, having maximum strength for minimum materials

Branching structures:

Membrane study – minimum surface tension

Gaudi worked on the suspension model of “Colonia Guell” for over 10 yers:

More about the interdisciplinary approach in architecture in our previous posts: the structure in nature is a strategy for design, informal: Cecil Balmond…

RABBIT 0.2: New Cellular Automata features:

• user defined initial configurations
• automatic/manual control of the CA evolution
• CA memory – stores all configurations/states of the CA calculated for different time steps(t=0,1,2,3…)

With RABBIT 0.2 you could visualize 2D Cellular automata in 3 dimensions – the third dimension is a function of time.
The geometry inherits the underlying topology of the cellular automata – the evolution ot the cells is encoded in the form

Take a look at the video:
Rabbit + Grasshopper: 3D L-systems, 3D Cellular Automata
music: “Ratatat”

RABBIT 0.2: New LSystems features:

• user defined LSystems
• fractals: Koch curves, Space-filling curves, …
• Branching LSystems
• 2d/3d Turtle interpretation

Some experiments with LSystems:

“Air island” #1

Axiom: F
Production rule: F=FF/F+F^
Number of generations: 8
Default step of the turtle: 6
Default angle increment of the turtle: 90

“Air island” #2

Axiom: F
Production rule: F=F/F+F^F
Number of generations: 6
Default step of the turtle: 11
Default angle increment of the turtle: 90

“Air island” #3

Axiom: F
Production rule: F=F^F-F/
Number of generations: 8
Default step of the turtle: 6
Default angle increment of the turtle:: 90

MORPHOCODE is working on the new release of RABBIT - our plug-in for Rhino & Grasshopper. The upcoming release contains new powerful tools: LSystem component and a 3D Turtle Interpreter component.

With RABBIT 0.2 by MORPHOCODE you would be able to create different types of LSystems: (deterministic, stochastic, context-free, parametric) and visualize them as geometry structures.

Few images produced with RABBIT 0.2:

Exploring LSystems in 3D Video:
RABBIT 0.2 preview : 2d/3d LSystems + Turtle Interpretation
music: “The Slackers”

What is an LSystem?

In Brief: LSystem is a parallel string rewriting system. A string rewriting system consists of an initial string, called the seed, and a set of rules for specifying how the symbols in a string are rewritten as (replaced by) strings. Let’s have a look at a simple LSystem:

seed: A
rules:
A = AB
B = BA

The LSystem starts with the seed ‘A’ and iteratively rewrites that string using the production rules. On each iteration a new word is derived.
n is the derivation length = the number of iterations

n=0: A
n=1: AB
n=2: ABBA
n=3: ABBABAAB
n=4: ABBABAABBAABABBA
…

All these  words form the language of the LSystem.

Application of LSystems

Since their original formulation, L-systems have been adapted to modelling a wide range of phenomena including:

• herbaceous plants
• neural networks
• the procedural design of cities
• generative art
• generative music

There exist different types of LSystems: deterministic, stochastic, context-free, context-sensitive, parametric, timed-depending on the rules and the way they are applied by the LSystem.

For more info about LSytems, we strongly suggest the following resources:

• The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants & other papers
• Designing with L-Systems Series by Griswold, Ralph E. – Part 1
• Design by Evolution: Advances in Evolutionary Design (Natural Computing Series)
• LSystems in architecture by Michael Hansmayer
• Wikipedia LSystems

What is a Turtle Interpreter?

In Brief:

The derivation strings of developing L-systems can be interpreted as a linear sequence of instructions (with real-valued parameters in the case of parametric L-systems) to a ‘turtle’, which interprets the instructions as movement and geometry building actions. The historical term turtle interpretation comes from the early days of computer graphics, where a mechanical robot turtle (either real or simulated), capable of simple movement and carrying a pen, would respond to instructions such as ‘move forward’, ‘turn left’, ‘pen up’ and ‘pen down’. Each command modifies the turtle’s current position, orientation and pen position on the drawing surface. The cumulative product of commands creates the drawing.

RABBIT 0.2 provides a 3d Turtle Interpreter: the “turtle”  moves and draws graphics in 3d. The TurtleInterpreter could be used by itself or together with the LSystem component giving you the opportunity to explore new designs.

Feel free to comment here !

“Poltava” cinema

“Of all the various forms of art, we find cinema to be the most important”

This is what was written above the main entry of the hall of “Poltava” cinema 20 years ago. Slowly throughout the years the sign has vanished. This cinema used to be one of the fanciest places in the town of Veliko Tarnovo in the yearly 80’s – a historic capital of Bulgaria, visited by thousands of tourists every year. The architect who conceived the building is called Tanio Belev: we recently made that discovery and had the chance to visit this extraordinary building that doesn’t function as a cinema anymore. We find some similarities with the work of Louis Kahn in terms of monumentality and form.

The building:

Build in the 80’s, this unique cinema originally had two halls: a main one with 720 seats and a small one, disposing of 150 seats. Due to the lack of audiences, the cinema was soon closed and the main halls were used for different purposes such as bars, clubs, and mini market.

At present the facades of the building are in poor condition.

Instead of movie posters the walls are covered with scratches and grafitti.

What happens to a cinema when it grows old?

For now no one knows what will happen to this old cinema although it is located in the center of the town- nobody’s willing to invest and this beautiful building is in very bad state. Unfortunately what is happenning in Tarnovo is common to other big cities in Bulgaria where traditional cinema as an art institution is being replaced by the multiplex thus destroying the identity of that art form.

Just a few months ago  The Institute of contemporary art (ICA) made possible the opening of the ICA–Sofia Gallery.

The current exhibition at The Institude of contemporary art gallery is called „International artist“  and consists in dozens of hand-made drawings that cover entirely the walls of the space. The drawings are made by the romanian artist Dan Perjovschi who’s

“ironical art is a critique on the way the global political language of media and analysts are reading the events in our world. His targets are capitalism as well as post-socialism, the absurd of current politics as well as the paradox of being an artist in today’s globalized world.”

The „International artist“ exhibition can be seen in the ICA Gallery in Sofia until the end of January 2010.

Geomag

- Geomag is a constructive gaming system, comprised of nickel balls and short sticks with magnets, attached to both of their ends. With these two elements one can make innumerous combinations:

Bucky balls

A set of magnetic balls, which allow for many combinations to be made:

Lego

- Architectural LEGO includes several original sets, such as“Fallingwater” and the Gugenheim museum , by Frank Lloyd Wright:

Ant farm

A special box full of transparent gel, which ants use for food; it allows one to observe the ant-made structures:

A Book

A book is always a good pick…here are some of our favourites:

- Informal: Cecil Balmond
- Structure in nature is a strategy for design
- The memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer
- …more books on architecture

…Merry Christmas!

The railroad has its significance for the town as it divides the historical central part and the contemporary neighborhood where one could find all the modern facilities (schools, stadium, and residential area). This project aims at reestablishing a symbolic interrelation between the two parts of the city and equally to celebrate the arrival of the TGV.

HDA about the design process

”La Roche sur Yon is the birthplace of Robert le Ricolais, engineer, architect, poet and painter, known for his theoretical research on trellis structures and tensegrity during the 1950’s. This heritage, both intellectual and historical, has inspired the design of the new footbridge by attempting maximum lightness. During the design process therefore HDA combined structural optimization with the architectural concepts by creating a full height filigree lattice tube, that provides not only a support for safety meshes as required by the railway authority, but also maximum structural inertia.”

You can learn more about the project on HDA’s website.
More photos of the bridge on their flickr set.

P.S.(14.12.2009) : We’re posting a few pictures of study models of the footbridge that our friend Antoine made at HDA. Thanks for sending them!:)

MORPHOCODE is pleased to announce the first release of RABBIT - a new plug-in for Grasshopper! RABBIT provides a new toolbar with custom components that could solve specific design problems. RABBIT v.0.1.00 contains 6 new components that could produce multiple Cellular Automata variations such as: 2X2, 34 Life, Amoeba, Assimilation, Coagulations, Conway’s Life(ghx included), Coral, Day&Night, Diamoeba, Flakes, Gnarl, HighLife, InverseLife, Long life, Maze, Mazectric, Move, Pseudo life, Replicator, Seeds (2), Stains, WalledCities…. The first release includes also a small list of pre-defined patterns.

This release works with version 0.6.0043 of Grasshopper and is freely distributable package licensed under Creative Commons License.

GET RABBIT HERE!

We played with Cellular Automata in Grasshopper lately.
A Cellular automaton is a system of networked cells(for ex. a regular grid of cells) that interact with each other. Each cell has a state( for ex. “Dead” or “Alive”)
Each cell evolves over time – it could die or survive to the next generation depending on its neighbors. In result of these local interactions, multiple patterns emerge on a global level.

We implemented one of the most famous CA: “The Game of Life” in Grasshopper, have a look at the video:

Rhino + Grasshopper: Cellular Automata on a surface
music by “The Slackers”

Each of the cells is projected on a surface parameter.
A Timer component drives the evolution of the system.

Folded wall

We recently watched a movie, considered to be one of the most memorable examples of old bulgarian cinema. Filmed in 1970, “Bash majstorat” is sure to keep you laughing with its simple touching story of a familly guy who wants to build an additional storey to his house.
What made us write about the movie is an interesting case of interior design that we saw in one of the scenes – take a look at the wall in the video:

Interesting interior from an old bulgarian movie

…the manager’s desk:

The interior also inspired some of the last experiments that we posted in the LAB.