The key goal of Computational Design for Digital Fabrication seminar was to utilise Python within Grasshopper to develop an algorithmic approach not easily achievable with standard Grasshopper scripting logic. The introduction of conditional statements, such as ‘if’, ‘else’ etc., within the visual scripting environment adds an extra level of complexity and greatly increases potential applications of the plug-in and its use cases.

Inspired by the research of Mitchel Resnick & Steven Johnson the task was set to develop a decentralized programme that could be used to inform architectural design via emergent systems within the Rhino3D environment.

A rule set was developed to generate geometry that would could run any number of iterations to then see what potential information, patterns or geometries would be generated and what potential application they may inform. The script was written as to allow as many different and varying rule sets as possible for future applications.

Additional rules, motivations or biases could fundamentally be introduced within the code to test different outputs. Within the time frame of the seminar all processes run on a two-dimensional grid, but the script is flexible and already features the variable to introduce pathways through the z-direction within Rhino.

Software Seminar | MRAC 2018-2019
Guest Lecturer:  Long Nguyen
MRAC Faculty: Eugenio Bettucchi