Module 3 - Give me a shelter
Overview:
For this project, I decided to create some sort of a bus stop shelter. My goal for this assignment was to create a parametric structure that would mimic a wave breaking on the shore. I wanted the design to be modelled by mathematical functions, and be easily sizeable (i.e. height, number of waves, number of beams, horizontal and vertical projection of the wave, etc.). For that, I would prompt the user’s input to modify the structure as they wish. A detailed explanation of my modelling approach is described in the next part.
Shelter modelled in Revit
Modelling approach:
The following steps describe my modelling approach for this assignment.
Step 1: Gather user input and start creating guides for the structure
For this part, I wanted to modulate a sine wave to put on top of the shelter. For that, I created a line from two points, as shown in the Starting points sine curve group. The points are modifiable using the sliders in the User inputs group. Then, I remapped the line using reference points as shown in the Remapping group. I then applied a sine function to these points to modify their heights and mimic a sine wave. The wave amplitude and the number of waves can easily be adjusted. This sine wave will be used to create the overall shape of the structure (detailed in Step 2.).
At the end of the project, I created a User inputs group. This group allows the user to change some of the parameters of the structure easily, like its length, height, vertical and horizontal projection, number of beams on the structure, as well as panel density.
Step 2: Create the guides for the structure (continued)
The second step for this project was to create two straight lines to guide my structure. For that, I created a line laying on the y-axis, with a length chosen by the user. As shown in the Structure straight lines group, the fist line is created under the Create baseline node, and it is then offset in the y- and z-directions through the Offset line nod. Finally, the Sine Curve Definition group shows how the sine curve was created on top of the structure. The points previously created are split into their x, y, and z coordinates, where the latter is offset by the sine function described in Part 1. The node NurbsCurve.ByPoints creates the sine curve from the newly created points.
Step 3: Create the wire structure and place beams
The two straight lines, as well as the sine curve, are then merged. A surface is created from the three curves as shown in the Create surface group. From these curves, equally spaced “wires” are placed along the three curves, following the structure’s final shape. The anchor points for the beams as well as for the future panels are created as shown in the Create wire structure group.
The groups Assign family types to beams and Assign family types to panels define what objects are going to be used for both the beams and the panels of the final structure. The group Change beam parameters allows to modify the radius of the beams to the liking of the user - in this example, we used a radius of 1.
Step 4: Define the panels
This last step allows to customise the appearance of the panels. For that, we took every other panel to have a frame width of 25%, and the others a frame width of 0%. This step is shown in the Create a panel pattern group below. We could modify the code used to have 1 in every 5 panel to have a certain opening for instance, etc. These adjustments can be made to the user's liking.
