Free-form modeling for ARCHICAD

[Martin Jules]

How could I realize the enclosed waffle system using PARAM-O? Please let me know!

[jl_lt]

Mjules wrote:
Runxel,

The best way to help Graphisoft get out from its comfort zone with ArchiCAD is to criticize it. As such, the spirit of balance is important. It is not enough to tell that ArchiCAD is perfect. We must also look at its limits in terms of architectural design. Improving its limits will help us have one of the best architectural software in the future.

As ArchiCAD users, we need to be able to meet the demands of organic architecture as well on the market.

I think its fair and very necesary to criticize Archicad for what it is (an architectural 3d modeller with openBim philosophy), but its not fair to criticize it for what its not (a parametric surface modeller), where wishing is different from criticizing.

Complicated architecture is just that, complicated, but not necesarily better; yet, if you need to do it there are better tools for it, and even then, Archicad can be a part of the process, just look at what these guys are doing: https://www.uha.london/projects/ Not my stuff, but they use Archicad+ Rihino Grasshopper.

[Martin Jules]

Special thanks to McNeel for thinking and working for this market segment of the AEC industry. Otherwise, we would still use the same techniques used by Antonio Gaudi from olden days for architectural designs mimicking natural forms.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Mjules wrote:
Special thanks to McNeel for thinking and working for this market segment of the AEC industry. Otherwise, we would still use the same techniques used by Antonio Gaudi from olden days for architectural designs mimicking natural forms.

McNeel never created Rhino (or Grasshopper|) as tools for the Architecture or AEC industries.
Not specifically or originally at least.

Rhino was developed as a general design tool mostly for other industries (Product design, Nautical (Ship and boat) design, and aeronautical design, Jewelry design...etc.), and it was architects and designers who adopted it to their workflow to fulfill needs that weren't being address with their traditional toolsets.
I mean, sure McNeel have played their part and been very supportive in helping it get adopted in these other industries. But its in the nature of their development process that they've made the tool itself accessible in other fields outside their main target markets.

It's much the same way that Digital Project, used by the likes of Gehry or Zaha Hadid Architects was never a tool meant for architects before Gehry adopted the use of CATIA to help him realize his designs (specifically the Guggenheim Bilbao) which couldn't be feasibly done with traditional AEC tools and methods.

CATIA was specifically design for the aeronautical and airline design industry.
Gehry adopted it and later spun-off Digital Project which uses the same kernel or base but is geared towards architecture and the AEC industry. But it's out of the price range of most mortal architects and architecture firms, hence the reason a tool like Rhino comes into play which fills a lot of the same needs and functions, but at a much more realistic price range.

A lot of the reason why you see Rhino and Grasshopper being used and accessible in AEC is mostly thanks to the architects and architectural designers who adopted it (along with people like David Rutten who developed Grasshopper as a grad student as a side project and third party plugin before they fully integrated it into the program), and pushed for its use in the industry along with McNeel being supportive of the effort.

It shows what can happen and what you can get when you have both the users being fully engaged in the software and its development in a robust community, along with the developer themselves being fully supportive of the effort and open to it (and eager to be pushed to improve in areas they may not have envisioned themselves working in).

[Martin Jules]

Thanks for the clarification, Clarence!

Whatever the form of support provided by an architect, a designer, an engineer, a developer, a construction manager, a technician, or a corporation, etc. it is good for the progress of the AEC industry. Your examples are very relevant. An architect like Gehry dared a lot with his architecture style. Its daring has also contributed to various technological advances in the field. I also appreciate Graphisoft's effort in terms of ArchiCAD interoperability. It's about a huge effort, but I think it's also important to push a bit more the tools that architects or designers would like to use as if they were using their hands to draw. It is very important to think about the flexibility of the tools that way. The BIM concept, for instance, mainly concerns construction managers, and ArchiCAD has made great progress in this direction.

There is not a single market segment in the sector. That's why I insist that Graphisoft gives architects or designers more flexibility using the ArchiCAD's drawing tools, especially for those who start any architectural projects from the predesign phase and have to play with drawing tools to realize some massing shapes and sketches, make both digital and physical models to explore the users' spatial experience, etc. We thus need flexible architectural tools in ArchiCAD during the design thinking or the iterative process.

[jl_lt]

But again, Gehry wanted to do some projects that were not possible with the current tools at the time until he found those tools... in the aeronautic industry.

Im not saying that we shouldnt ask for more, which is what we have all being doing here, but other than this blobby and parametric forms which we already discussed there are better tools for, what is it that you find so unflexible in Archicad tools?

[Martin Jules]

David wrote:
I would guess that its an object (which really defeats the object of the exercise) sorry about the pun.
Also before we go back to feet and inches a level of accuracy better than 10mm is needed.

When I look at this free-form wall created by Graphisoft using PARAM-O, I see some hope for ArchiCAD user group working on organic architectural projects, passive buildings, sustainable neighborhood, etc. As a result, I would suggest Graphisoft to allow us to save this kind of objects as complex profiles, if needed, so that we can classify them with appropriate building systems. Another point is that architects design and draw in order to produce in one form or another. In other words, what we create using a computer doesn't stay on it like beautiful flowers. We need to print them, fabricate them, or share them with other stakeholders.

To print them according to local standards, we need much more developed tools for construction documentation. To fabricate them digitally, we also need powerful tools allowing us to contour the objects for laser cut, for instance, without using Grasshopper because we are ArchiCAD users first. About sharing platform, ArchiCAD has already had a competitive advantage in terms of BIM including integrated IFC, thanks to BIMcloud and the concept of teamwork.

[izo]

Long story short: what majority of more "industrial design" orientated users want, is to see nurbs integration into Archicad, so (true) free form modelling would be possible inside native program. That way, rhino etc would nor be needed and then you can incorporate grasshopper like (open code) geometry generator into it, just like Revit does, for ex.
On the one hand, this would be kind of expected, since Nemetscheck's Vectorworks is nurbs based, but on the other, this could be also sad prediction, this will never happen..

[Martin Jules]

izo wrote:
Long story short: what majority of more "industrial design" orientated users want, is to see nurbs integration into Archicad, so (true) free form modelling would be possible inside native program. That way, rhino etc would nor be needed and then you can incorporate grasshopper like (open code) geometry generator into it, just like Revit does, for ex.
On the one hand, this would be kind of expected, since Nemetscheck's Vectorworks is nurbs based, but on the other, this could be also sad prediction, this will never happen..

I agree with your points, Izo. Apparently, Graphisoft doesn't like progressive ideas. ArchiCAD has a great interface and technology that could have beaten both Rhino and Revit if Graphisoft had been listening to its user groups during the last 20 years. The company should have exploited that competitive advantage, and now, I am wondering how it could take this advantage over the other BIM software that currently meets the requirements of North American customers, for instance, in terms of free form and so forth.

[jl_lt]

could you point out what progressive ideas are you talking about? if you mean "organic" architecture, it has been done in its current iteration since the beginning of the 20th century, so from an architectural design point of view there is hardly anything new in itself

[Martin Jules]

jl_lt wrote:
could you point out what progressive ideas are you talking about? if you mean "organic" architecture, it has been done in its current iteration since the beginning of the 20th century, so from an architectural design point of view there is hardly anything new in itself

Jl-lt,

Do you know how to digitally fabricate free form physical models from ArchiCAD using contouring techniques?