Agent Based Dome and Pendentive_Plans

Successive plans cut through the agent generated dome and pendentive we can clearly notice the transformation of the dome into a square pendentive resting on 4 bundled coulmns.

Straw Hut

Project Name | Nervi's Straw Hut
Technology | 7-Axis Robot with PLC Extruder
Programming Language | Python (Rhino)
Number of Agent | 500

 

Transulency

MATERIAL QUALITY

One unexpected effect of the finished extrusions was that the polypropylene would be translucent.  This effect works in two ways.  The interior surfaces of the dome can be rendered in colors of adjacent surfaces.  If lit from the interior, the dome emits light.  This effect mimics the lantern atop Brunelleschi's dome, but through material quality, rather than fenestration.

In the double skin extrusions, light passes though the exterior surface, illuminating the cavity between skins.  The genius of construction of the layered skin and truss approach of Brunelleschi is highlighted, literally.

3D Printed Models: Various Typologies

3D Printed Sample_30 Agent Based Dome

Technology: Cubify 2nd Generation 3D Printer
Material: White PLA
Time: 4.5 hrs
Dimensions: 80mm x 80mm x 30mm
Number of Agents: 30

Woven Interior

Exterior of Extrusion

Interior During Extruding Process

Looking Up into Dome after Completion

Detail of Layered Interior

The results of this dome exhibit the culmination of the process of design, implementation and material result.  The base of the extrusion was quite exact in recreating the curves of the grasshopper script.  As the extrusion grew upward, the precision of the form began to diminish.  Partially intended, early attempts of generating the form through agent based scripts eventually lead to the desire to reproduce this "messy" quality in the finished product.  The resulting messiness was mostly by the dome's geometry and the physical parameters of the extrusion process.    

The height between toolpaths remained a contstant but the lateral offset of each toolpath toward the center increased with each step.  Once the toolpaths created extrusions that were greater than 45-degrees, the layers began to implode. The next layer had no substrate to build upon, so the extrusion was draped across the oculus, and the suspended extrusion formed the catenary curves near the top.  

Textural Quality of Layers Near Top

Catenary Curves from Suspended Extrusion

metal dome generation

Straw hut Dome

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 5000 Agents

Tool Path Generating

Tool Path Generating

Tool Path in SuperMatterTool

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 100 Agents

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 100 Agents

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 100 Agents

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 100 Agents

Straw Hut Dome with 5 layers, 100 Agents

Spaghetti Dome

Spaghetti Dome

Spaghetti Dome

Spaghetti Dome

Color variation examples

Each of the surfaces was divided into triangular panels. The distance between the center of the panel and the center of the base of the surface was then measured. The color range is determined based on the distance variation between these two parameters.

Grasshopper definition showing logic of color assignation