ID&CT 2009

Milano, ITALY, from May 6 - 7^th, 2009

This International conference wants to give the state of the art of innovative design and construction technologies.

The themes for IDCT09 will be focused on the following areas:

• Design and form finding
• Engineering and computational methods
• File2factory and mass customization
• Digital processes in construction industry
• Innovative materials
• Advanced design and construction technologies
• Technology transfer
• Multidisciplinary approach

A particular focus will be given on innovation, analysing project, tools, technologies and materials from critical and up to date point of view, that could arise the opportunities from privileged contexts to the construction sector in general.

The scientific committee of IDCT09 is coordinated in agreement with Politecnico di Milano, Faculty of Architecture and different national and international partners:

• Arup
• Buro Happold
• CIB – International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction
• Department BEST, Politecnico di Milano
• Department DIPSA, Facoltà di Architettura Roma Tre
• ETH Zurich
• Gehry Technologies
• Harvard University – Graduate School of Design
• TU Delft
• Stevens Institute of Technology - USA

From www.innovativetechnologies.polimi.it

The whole program here

aast09

Finally a good Italian opportunity to discuss new architectural frontiers. The promoter is CASARTARC Settimo Torinese Association.

Thanks to Andrea Graziano and Davide Del Giudice for the time spent in organizing the event.

Link to the blog
Link to CasArtArc
Link to facebook group

Formfinder

Formfinder is an interesting software developed by technet GmbH (light version is free) that can assist in the design, planning and cost-effectiveness assessment for the implementation of form-active structures. It also makes it possible to compare the desired design with projects that have already been implemented and dxf files can be exported to Rhino v4 for analysis as demonstrated in these tutorials.

Structural Optimization Methods by Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP

Thanks to Alberto Pugnale I've known that Alessandro Beghini, SOM associate in Chicago, will deliver a speech about structural optimization methods in Milan and in Turin:

Politecnico di Milano, 19/12/2008

Politecnico di Torino, Castello del Valentino, lecture hall 1, 22/12/2008 3.00 PM

Above other things he will present tools based on Michell trusses, Homogenization Method, Evolutionary Structural Opimization (ESO), Bidirectional ESO, etc. and applications of these tools in developing international projects and competitions.

Environmental analysis in Google SketchUp

Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) has developed and given a free environmental analysis tool for Revit customers. Now it has developed an environmental analysis tool for Google SketchUp, witch is also free. It allows empowering energy, carbon, daylight and solar analysis, and much more to be undertaken.

Interview to Don McLean on AEC magazine of October-November (pages 7, 10).

Link to the site.

Convex Hull 2.5D Source Code

I know there is a really nice plug-in (PSet Recon Tools) that already allow to use this algorithm but maybe someone could find usefull this code.. Based on Graham scan:

ConvexHull.rvb

ARUP in Genoa

Dear friends here's just a little but important post..

Degree Thesis Preview

I haven't posted so much this period 'cause I'm going to graduate on 18th of July. Thesis title is:
Computational Morphogenesis in Architecture - Free-Form Spatial Structures Optimization.

I worked in particular on spatial frames (like the great court of the British Museum - Foster + Buro Happold), simulating their behaviour in Rhino with a mesh. In a multi objective aim that concerns geometry and statics I developed algorithms to drive lengths between mesh vertices to a given database of measures, and then to perform mesh state of stress under gravity loads (for this second step I have linked Rhino and Ansys by a memetic algorithm in RVB).
The smaller the database, the roughter the result structures look. The difference from the 'original automatic made mesh', in the case of a hyperbolic paraboloid, is shown below.


Here are 3 benchmarks that I used to test different algorithms. Pink lines represent lengths driven to database measures.


more soon..

CUMINCAD - Cumulative Index of Computer Aided Architectural Design

http://cumincad.scix.net/cgi-bin/works/Home

CumInCAD is a cumulative index of publications about computer aided architectural design. It includes bibliographic information about over 8,700 records from journals and conferences such as ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SiGraDi, CAAD futures, DDSS and others. All papers include full abstracts. Full texts, in PDF, of some 6,000 papers are also available.

You can find papers from Burry, Frazer, Kolarevic about morphogenesis, computational architecture, optimization algorithms, etc.
Some papers also dealing with Rhino (Dristas wrote something interesting about scripting..) CATIA, Maya, Nastran...