For part 1, I decided to use the twisting rectangular mass (shown below) and vary the building height parameter. I set the initial height manually within Revit to 100’ with 10’ floor breaks for reference. I added 50 mass floors initially, and added more later on to allow for increased heigh variations.
Above: Initial configuration
For a first trial at the Dynamo nodes, I ran a 100’ - 200’ variation with a 100’ step to test out the logic. It worked fine and presented a final iteration of a 200’ tower. I had trouble getting Dynamo to recognize my Excel file so I had to enter the results manually - I think this is a result of a file path issue since Excel will only open on the Mac side of my desktop.
Left: 200’ tower; right: supporting Dynamo logic
I ran a variety of design scenarios, with the tallest height at 500’ across 6 different steps of 50’.
Left: 500’ tower; right: supporting Dynamo logic
For part 2, I decided to create a twisting tower with a uniquely-shaped face. I created this star-shaped face to import into the Revit mass template, which can then be manipulated depending on the width and length parameters (labeled Side C and Side D below).
Above: Star-shaped face to be imported into Revit mass tower templates.
I was able to get my form into the twisting tower template but for some reason Revit would not allow me to construct a form using this base. I’m not sure if the geometry was too complex, or if there was another issue at hand. The error message just said ‘cannot create form,’ which was incredibly unhelpful.
I did some digging but wasn’t able to figure out how to fix this issue. I changed the face from a star to this diamond shape and was able to create the form. I think the star shape might have been too complex for Revit to process.
Finally, I used Dynamo to create a List.map node to iteratively evaluate combinations of input values for the two input parameters, top height and top rotation.
I tested these parameters’ impact on gross floor area, similar to part 1. Even though this assignment ended up taking me a long time, it was interesting to learn how to edit parts of the whole - surfaces, faces, mass floors, etc - to manipulate as one in Dynamo.