Master in City & Technology 2020/21 – Term I
Seminar Name: Computational Urban Design I – Introduction to Rhinoceros & Grasshopper
Total Hours: 20 hours
Faculty: Eugenio Bettucchi & Iacopo Neri

Syllabus

The aim of the course is to establish the basis and provide an overview for the understanding of Grasshopper and its multiple applications. Main advantages of this software are the flexibility of the design workflow and the interoperability with other platforms. Grasshopper is a powerful tool which enhances designers capabilities to achieve complex geometries both in 2D and 3D. No prior knowledge of programming is required thanks to the intuitive graphical interface. After a first introduction on the interface and the basics, the goal of the course is to establish a clear methodology to design and visualize parametric elements. At the end of the course, participants will be able to understand and design complex structures made by the concatenation of simple operations. Students will acquire a basic-intermediate knowledge of Rhinoceros and Grasshopper and they will be capable of extending it, using external libraries, based on their proper interest and project intentions.

Learning Objectives

At course completion the student will:
– fluently use Rhinoceros and Grasshopper 3D,
– implements design solutions taking advantages of computational tools
– manage and visualize complex geometries and data
– read and export data in various format
– integrate Grasshopper 3D with others softwares

Faculty

Eugenio Bettucchi is a civil engineer with a degree in Building Engineering & Architecture from Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna (IT). He developed his thesis focusing on robotic material deposition based on real-time feedback. Actually he is senior designer at Noumena, his interests and skills lie in computational design and digital fabrication. He is part of the IaaC team assisting students in MRAC (master in Robotic and Advanced Construction) and MaCT master programme. He is also involved in the ROMI project (Robotics for Micro Farming) contributing to the development of autonomous aerial solutions.

Iacopo Neri’s research lies at the intersection between architecture, computer science and urban planning. He holds a Master of Science in Architecture with Distinction at The Polytechnic University of Milan, and attended a Master in City and Technology at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC, Spain) after presenting a paper about Swarm Intelligences for crowd-based analysis during the Responsive Cities Symposium (2017, Barcelona). He has been involved as a teaching assistant since 2015 at the University of Florence, later, at The Polytechnic University of Milan, and finally at IAAC where he is currently part of the City and Technology computational research team. He also works as a computational designer at External Reference Architecture Bureau, Barcelona.