Shape To Fabrication | STF#5 | April 2014

The London Aquatic Centre is designed to have the flexibility to accommodate the size and capacity of the London 2012 Games whilst also providing the optimum size and capacity for use in Legacy mode after the 2012 Games.

The architectural concept of the London Aquatic Centre is inspired by the fluid geometry of water in motion, creating spaces and a surrounding environment in sympathy with the river landscape of the Olympic Park. An undulating roof sweeps up from the ground as a wave - enclosing the pools of the Centre with its unifying gesture of fluidity, whilst also describing the volume of the swimming and diving pools.

Double-curvature geometry has been used to create a structure of parabolic arches that create the unique characteristics of the roof. The roof projection over the bridge entrance announces the London Aquatic Centre’s presence from the approach from either Stratford City or the Olympic Park.

Patrik Schumacher

Patrik Schumacher is partner at Zaha Hadid Architects. He joined in 1988 and has been the co-author of many key projects. Together with Zaha Hadid he built up Zaha Hadid Architects to become a 400 strong global architecture brand. Patrik Schumacher studied philosophy, mathematics, and architecture in Bonn, London and Stuttgart. He completed his PHD at the Institute for Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University. Since 1996 he teaches the AA Design Research Laboratory. In 2010 and 2012 he published the two Volumes of The Autopoiesis of Architecture.

Image credits:Hufton + Crow

Simulation is now used routinely to appraise and optimise pre-existing design strategies. However, the promise of successfully balancing the power of simulation and distributed intelligence at the early stages of conceptual ideation with the power of lateral, non-linear intuitive design, remains elusive.

Physics-based form finding simulations are becoming commonplace and can be deemed appropriate when structure is the overarching priority. Nevertheless, in practice, a range of engineering performance criteria and more autonomous architectural concerns all compete for priority, and each requires more intelligent interaction across scales to resolve.

Here we present research into new design frameworks for urban design and intervention, where architectural intentions are simulated in distributed systems; scenarios where the design team and collaborators participate in real time, adjusting input data and, more importantly, interacting with the formal consequences.

The London 2012 Olympic Torch was carried across the UK for 70 days leading up to the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics on 27 July. 8,000 torches were produced, one for each Torch Relay participant.

The Torch’s trilateral form was developed in recognition of a pattern of trinities in the history of the Olympic Games: this is the third time that the Games have been held in London (1908, 1948, 2012) and the Olympic motto is ‘faster, higher, stronger.’ The shape of the Torch enables easy grip, as does its tactile surface, perforated with 8,000 circles using cutting-edge laser technology. These circles symbolise the 8,000 individuals who will take part in the Olympic Torch Relay and also create a unique level of transparency in the Torch, where one can see right to the heart of the Flame.

Jon Marshall

Jon Marshall joined Barber Osgerby in 2003 and led the team delivering the 2012 Olympic Torch. He also developed iconic pieces such as the De La Warr Pavilion Chair, Tab Lamp and Iris Tables. Jon is currently design director of MAP a strategy-based industrial design studio that works alongside Barber Osgerby.

Speedo will present the journey of 2012 product developments that were shaped during the research and design of the Games suit, caps and goggles.

The Speedo Fastskin3 Cap and Goggles are swim race wear products which were developed as part of the Speedo Fastskin Racing System. Fully approved for use in competitions by FINA, (Federation Internationale de Natation), the world governing body for swimming, the Fastskin Racing System was launched commercially at the end of 2011 in time for swimmers to be able to race in them at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Rhino software played a pivotal role in defining the product surfaces during the research, design and development phases of the project.

Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson has worked as the Aqualab Lead Designer since 2007, following 10 years’ experience in automotive design and product design consultancies. Chris currently leads the creative design and development of hard goods and digital products within Speedo.

Bicycle Frames. From the Olympics to the TdF; How 3D CAD made it possible

Putting a bike on the starting line of an Olympic event with some of the strongest riders in the world on-board takes some effort, knowledge and understanding of what is involved around the sport itself, the materials, design methods, manufacturing methods, etc. Designing for the TdF and a Professional Cycling Team requires maximum versatility and ability to communicate with companies around the world that use several different systems.

Easy-to-use 3D CAD was fundamental in cutting development time, exploring interactions and pushing the boundaries of how shapes can be developed and implemented.

Examples will be given on improvements gained in terms of shape manipulation and interactions explored in relation to neighbouring components and body parts to the frame as well as the relevant importance of these parameters in the athletic performance.

Finally, rendering for communication purposes as well as reverse engineering examples will be shown.

Dimitris Katsanis

Dimitris Katsanis: an Athens born engineer and ex-Greek National Team sprinter cyclist, with a background in aerospace composites and a keen interest for making thing better. His footsteps and attention to detail made the bikes that he designed achieve many Olympic medals and now he is targeting the TdF.

Bob is the CEO of Robert McNeel & Asscociates, the developers of Rhino Software. The use of this 3D CAD Modelling tool features in all projects being presented at this Shape to Fabrication Conference.

Bob will answer any questions on Rhino use, development & its future. There are also of course the plug-ins Flamingo, Penguin & Bongo, questions on any of these subjects are welcome.

If you are unable to attend but would like us to pose a question for you, we’d be happy to do that. Questions we have from others already:

• Are you busy with Rhino 6?
• When might we see a Beta?
• Rhino for the Mac? When is that likely to ship?
• How will the final Mac version of Rhino compare to the version for Windows?
• I understand the Mac version is not feature complete compared to the Win version – will it ever be?
• Do you intend Rhino for Mac to be sold on the Apple App Store?
• Grasshopper 1.0 will ship as part of Rhino 6.0, is that correct?
• As we can see Grasshopper is a tool certain architects are very reliant on. What other industries are showing interest? Do you have any examples of those?
• Some of the more popular plug-ins for Rhino have been bought by Autodesk and as such their future (inside Rhino) is uncertain. Are you concerned about this? Should we be?
• Have you ever considered selling Rhino to one of these huge CAD companies?
• What are your thoughts on CAD on the Cloud & how this relates to Rhino?
• Will Rhino get proper (i.e. fast) 2D drawing ability like SolidWorks etc?

Populous were the official architectural and overlay design service provider to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In this presentation Populous will give an overview of the work completed leading up to the 2012 Olympics and focusing on the design and delivery of the 2012 main stadium. The presentation will illustrate the Rhino work undertaken in the design and delivery of the 2012 stadium expanding to cover the on going transformation work underway in the transformation of the main stadium into its legacy use.

David Hines

David Hines is a senior associate at Populous. He joined the global design practice in 2005 and worked on the development of the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, being involved with all aspects from design to completion. He leads the parametric and advanced geometry group within Populous, developing in-house tools and applications, and has lectured on similar topics at several universities and conferences around the world.

Pavol Knapo

Pavol Knapo is a versatile designer who explores overlaps between architecture, geometry and computation. He joined Populous in 2013 and has worked on Olympic Stadium Transformation since. He has developed number of applications that helped design development within tight timeframe.

Image credits: GettyImages and ® POPULOUS

Fisht Stadium Overview

The Populous architectural offices were responsible for designing the iconic Fisht Stadium. The main stadium design delivers a wonderful vision for the winter Olympics, and a lasting sustainable legacy for Sochi. Its sweeping form responds to both its coastal location and mountainous backdrop, and engages with its surroundings by day, and provides an iconic representation of the colour and spectacle of the games when illuminated at night. The building sits in a prominent location on the Sochi Olympic plaza, with each of the multiple stairway transitions acknowledging the direction of spectator approaches and creating a landscaped flow to the podium within which the main trussed roof form springs from sleek buttresses. The stadium is driven by a desire to utilize the form and transparency of the skin of the building, to expose structural elements and preserve viewing corridors to the mountains and sea. The dynamic relationship between the curvature of the roof edge and the podium, frames views both into the stadium for the general public and outwards for those spectators ascending within the skeleton of the building. The differing modal requirements are accommodated within a simple bowl arrangement providing event configurations between 25,000 and 45,000 seats to address Olympic opening, closing, and medal ceremonies, and full FIFA stadium compliance to meet its world cup host venue ambitions. Outside of major event mode, the bowl reverts to a compact and atmospheric environment, with a continuous lower bowl flanked by two upper wing terraces housed within the main arches of the stadium.

Marc Fornes is an award-winning architect. His pop-up for Louis Vuitton at Selfridges was the first carbon fibre self-supported shell applied to architecture. He’s taught at Princeton, Harvard and was a TED fellow in 2012. With his parametric designs, Fornes creates intricate structures, comprised of many small, flat elements created with CNC Machines. He has recently been commissioned to create an open-air theatre in Maryland.

For more information on Marc Fornes and his projects, click here.

Image credits: Marc Fornes & THEVERYMANY™

The Abu Dhabi International Airport is one of the largest single buildings under construction in the world today. The vast size of the building presents the client, contractor and designers with various challenges.

As construction progresses on site, KPF remains involved in numerous aspects of the project. This presentation explores KPF’s approach to:

• Consistent changes and optimization of the design, alongside numerous requests for information during construction
• The use of Rhino, Grasshopper and various visualization tools to illustrate the process of design changes, reverse computational design and geometry verification

Cobus Bothma became an Associate Principle in 2009, after joining Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) in 2008. An industrial designer by qualification, Cobus is involved in many aspects of design and advanced geometry at KPF. Having worked on numerous projects and competitions, he has an efficient and visual approach to design and geometry challenges with a practical BIM approach to data coordination.

Designed in collaboration between Turner-Prize winning artist Sir Anish Kapoor and Arup, the ArcelorMittal Orbit was the centrepiece of the 2012 Olympics and is the largest work of public art in the UK. It was also a geometrically and technically complex project which could not have been designed without the extensive use of Rhino, Grasshopper and our own custom-developed set of software tools.

In this presentation the techniques used in the development of the design will be discussed, as well as how those techniques have since continued to be developed and applied on many other projects, including the National Stadium and Sports Hall and Athletic Stadium forming part of King Abdullah Sports City in Saudi Arabia.

Paul Jeffries

Paul Jeffries is a Structural Engineer and Software Developer who joined Arup in 2007. He specialises in computational design and complex geometry and is in charge of Arup Associates' Parametric Design Unit, an embedded research and development unit that investigates, promotes and develops computational approaches to design problems.

Chiara Tuffanelli

Chiara Tuffanelli is a registered architect that worked in Rome and London as a designer, 3d digital modeller and project manager, collaborating with architectural and engineering studios since 2002. Interested in geometrical challenges in the building design, she has joined Arup in 2008 and is currently working in the Façade Engineering group in London.

A look ahead to possible futures & features for Grasshopper 2.0

"Popular among students and professionals, McNeel Associate’s Rhino modelling tool is endemic in the architectural design world. The new Grasshopper environment provides an intuitive way to explore designs without having to learn to script."

— AEC Magazine
www.grasshopper3d.com

Grasshopper supports third party plugin in development: here we see the Godzilla industrial robot simulation plugin by RoboFold running in Grasshopper.

Grasshopper allows reation of complex geometry: Cactus Skeleton by Weiland Schmidt

Arthur Mamou-Mani, Simply Rhino's Grasshopper tutor and practising architect, will introduce the rich eco-system of plugins that can be used with Grasshopper. From environmental forces (Geco and Diva) to structural ones (Karamba), from introducing the laws of physics to a model (Kangaroo) to the concept of recursion (Hoopsnake) or from Mesh subdivision (Weaverbird) all the way to linking your model with a BIM software for construction (Geometry Gym) these plugins will help you inform your design with a multitude of useful external parameters and will generate innovative and intelligent projects that might not have been imagined without them!

P.art® (Parametric Applied Research Team) at AKT II is a research based practice that seeks innovation in design and construction through the close integration of research and practice; the development of tools and new fabrication methods. Through its work, which is based on a rigorous structured approach to design, they have developed new rational geometric organizations, form-finding techniques and efficient material systems.

Ed Tibuzzi

Ed Tibuzzi {Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering} is a designer and researcher based in London(UK). In 2007 he joined Adams Kara Taylor (now AKTII) and shortly after became member of its parametric applied research unit (p.art®) Subsequently to his degree he developed a profound interest for parametric design. Uncertainty modelling, quantification and mitigation, multi-scale modelling of structures and multidisciplinary design optimization are part of his daily research. During his work at AKTII, he has completed various projects, in particular BMW Pavilion and Coca-Cola Beat-box (London 2012 Olympic Park), He collaborates with KTH University in Stockholm and Tor Vergata University in Rome, running various lectures and workshops. He co-led a cluster in 2013 Smart Geometry.

Coca Cola Beatbox

Based on a reciprocal triangular tilling of prismatic units, the facade of the Coca Cola pavilion is a rigid, self supporting structure of 5x1 metre ETFE pillows, acting as interlocking air beams to form a cylindrical facade. This facade wraps around two spiralling ramps and an internal drum of a building to create a responsive, animated and musical three dimensional curtain, giving the pavilion its name, Beatbox.

BMW Group Olympic Pavillion

The BMW Olympic pavillion, despite the modest dimension is a complex piece of architecture and engineering. Above the hidden infrastructure of the lower deck, little in terms of structure meets the eye, with all technical services integrated within a lightweight cellular steel upper deck also supporting the pool of water that spills over the edge to form the water curtains. Above the water-cube, 10 pod structures are connected by bridges over the water, each consisting of a timber floor and thin curved roof-shell structures spanning up to 15m over needle-thin steel columns. Constructed in simple timber ply and joists, these stress-skins consist of two one-inch cross laminated ply sheets separated by grillage of simple timber joists; an inexpensive but extremely efficient construction which uses principles of boat building technology. These simple but elegant structures were achievable through a parametric digital-to-fabrication process which converted the complex curved forms into complete sets of cutting profiles for the fabrication of the joists and ply sheets, complete with a detailed assembly manual.

The CityGML standard is now playing an important role in structured 3d data exchange.

CityGML provides much more than 3D content for visualization! It allows users to share a textured virtual 3D city with attributes in a very robust way.

3D models are more than only visualization media; it is a wonderful added value investment for technical process/analyses.

It opens the door for sophisticated analysis and display tasks in application domains such as environmental simulations, energy demand estimations, city lifecycle management, urban facility management, real estate appraisal, disaster management, pedestrian navigation, robotics, urban data mining, and location based marketing.

RhinoCity is an industrial plugin for Rhinoceros 5.0 for high quality CityGML.

RhinoCity provides all the necessary tools and workflow to create 3d City models from photogrammetric aerial images. The buildings and terrain are automatically created, textured and annotated with attributes. RhinoCity exports the 3d model using the CityGML standard.

This workflow has been successfully used, by a significant number of major international municipalities like Montreal, Monaco, Geneva, Lyon and Strasbourg… Over one million buildings were created and textured.

Image Credit : DAT/EM Systems International

Image Credit : DAT/EM Systems International

Image Credit : Communauté Urbaine de Lyon ( Courly)

Image Credit : Communauté Urbaine de Bordeaux

Image Credit : Communauté Urbaine de Bordeaux

RhinoCity provides all the necessary tools and workflow to create 3d City models from photogrammetric aerial images. The buildings and terrain are automatically created, textured and annotated with attributes. RhinoCity exports the 3d model using the CityGML standard.

www.rhinoterrain.com/en/montreal-joins-rhinoterrain/testimonials.html

At the end of the presentation a quick introduction of RhinoCapture will be made. This new coming plugin will close the loop and open the professional photogrammetry to everyone! RhinoCapture, is using the ultra robust DAT/EM Systems International (www.datem.com) core technologies, and is fully dedicated to photogrammetric building and terrain 3D capturing. Let’s bring Rhino into the data producer technologies industry!

On arriving in London, each of the 204 national teams competing in the 2012 Olympic Games received a special object, inscribed with the name of its country. Each slightly different from the other, these objects have sculpturally beautiful forms, made in polished copper.

During the opening ceremony, teams entered the Olympic stadium, a chosen team member bearing their country's precious object. One by one, in a clearing at the centre of the growing crowd of athletes, these artefacts were laid out as offerings, forming a large-scale pattern on the ground that radiates like the petals of a flower.

After these copper components were illuminated by the London 2012 Olympic Torch, the first one began rising silently from the ground, carried upwards on a long fine stem, followed in circular waves by all the others. Over the next minute or so, the 204 separate flames converged to form one great flame of unity surging into the sky, making this a giant kinetic sculpture in the centre of the stadium that symbolises the coming together in peace of 204 nations for two weeks of sporting competition.

At the Closing Ceremony the Olympic cauldron opened out and divided once more into its constituent objects. It was the studio's intention that the Cauldron would be a representation of the extraordinary, albeit transitory, togetherness that the Olympic Games symbolise.

Neil Hubbard

Neil joined Heatherwick Studio in 2005. He immediately proved instrumental to the team on multiple aspects of the £120m Pacific Place redevelopment in Hong Kong, from the design of the new restaurant, to overseeing the construction of many elements of the mall interior.

Since then, he has been the project designer on many of the studio’s high profile projects, such as the New Bus for London, overseeing the design from inception through to detail and manufacture. The first bus was launched on the streets of London in February 2012, with 600 vehicles set to be delivered by 2016. Neil also played a key role in the concept delivery of the Garden Bridge, an exciting project that the studio is currently working on with Transport for London and Arup, designed to link North and South London with a garden.

Neil also coordinates the design of the studio’s exhibitions, most recently, ‘Heatherwick Studio: Designing the extraordinary’. It ran during the summer of 2012 at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, and was the museum’s most successful paid contemporary show to date. The studio is currently gearing up for an exhibition tour of North America.

Zeitz MOCAA
Cape Town, South Africa

How do you turn forty-two vertical concrete tubes into a place to experience contemporary culture?

The brief was to reinvent the historic Grain Silo at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, as a not-for-profit cultural institution housing the most significant collection of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora.

Our first thoughts wrestled with the extraordinary physical facts of the building. There is no large open space within the densely packed tubes and it is not possible to experience these volumes from inside. Rather than strip out the evidence of the building’s industrial heritage, we wanted to find a way to celebrate it. We could either fight a building made of concrete tubes or enjoy its tube-iness.

Unlike many conversions of historic buildings which have grand spaces ready to be repurposed, this building has none. The project became about imagining an interior carved from within an infrastructural object.

The solution we developed was to carve galleries and a central circulation space from the silos’ cellular concrete structure, creating a cathedral-like central atrium filled with light from a glass roof.

The other silo bins will be carved away above ground level to create gallery spaces for the Zeitz MOCAA permanent collection and international travelling exhibitions.

From the outside, the greatest visible change to the Silo’s monumental structure will be the addition of pillowed glazing panels, inserted into the existing geometry of the upper floors, which will bulge outward as if gently inflated. By night, this will transform the building into a glowing lantern or beacon in the harbour.

Gregory Epps, developer of the RoboFold technology, will talk about how the appropriation of industrial robots by architects and designers has created some un-expected design and manufacturing possibilities, and how this effects the future of both the creative and manufacturing industries.

RoboFold has developed simple to use robot simulation software that operates in Rhino and is controlled through Grasshopper. The software is now being used by other companies that are developing their own manufacturing technologies.