Envelope

“All that is digital is variable, and digital variability goes counter to all the postulates of identicality that have informed the history of Western cultural technologies for the last five centuries”
(The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo)

With the emergence of contemporary computational design tools such as parametric modeling, real-time sensing, physical computing, and reality capture we have witnessed an unprecedented coalescence of the worlds of atoms and bits. Increasingly, architectural design bears witness to the fading distinctions between virtual and physical space. One consequence of this techno-shift in architectural design is that the physical assemblies that comprise buildings, and the underlying logics of organization and aesthetic composition have become increasingly algorithmic in motivation. Algorithmic techniques in design allow for precise positioning of building components, variable patterning, and complex relationships between form and function. Here the idea was to explore the algorithmic design of a parametric building envelope system using Grasshopper and GH_Python.

A parametric building envelope is created in Grasshopper using a drive surface to generate the global shape. The building envelope includes facade panels, a secondary structure to hold the system, and algorithmic patterning of elements derived from sun’s position. The building envelope created has parametric control over size, shape, and pattern of facade subsurfaces; size, spacing, orientation of the secondary structure; opening of the fins to block unwanted light based on a parametric logic.

GH script 

48783: Generative Modeling
Architecture Department
Carnegie Mellon University – Pittsburgh
Fall 2021