Adam’s Easy A-Frame is a tool that allows a user to flex numerous inputs to build the frame of a simple A Frame Cabin. This tool will allow future homeowners to get an idea of the rough dimensions of their dream home. This tool will also provide a slew of corresponding metrics so that homeowners can make the best decision on how their dream house should be constructed. The user upon opening the dynamo script will be able to vary numerous different inputs which can be seen below:

These inputs include:

These inputs provide the parameters which a future homeowner can flex to create a design of their dream A Frame Cabin. With the inputs selected, this tool will then be able to provide helpful metrics on the volume of the home, the cost of the building materials, the embodied carbon of the building, the deflection of the roof under a snow load, and the max roof load the building can support. These outputs will give the homeowner a good idea of what they can expect if they construct a home of the dimensions they have specified.

The outputs include:

With a few clicks anyone using this tool can have a fully generated A-Frame Cabin. If the cost is too high simply change the inputs. If the deflection is too high add more beams or columns. If the embodied carbon is not to your standard make a smaller home! All these decisions are at the hand of the user.

This tool also comes with a very handy generative design tool that allows you to optimize your structure based on what you want to vary and what you want to have held constant. An example output can be seen below:

This tool will provide a user to make the most optimal A-Frame Cabin! What an easy tool!

The tool is built on dynamo logic with two custom nodes that make the entire interface very simple for the user. The main dynamo script can be seen below:

The inputs are simply listed and the associated custom node is where all the computation actually occurs. The below images are for creating a Revit model of the dynamo script. The Revit model is so that the user can get a better sense of the model built in dynamo. The Revit model features colored elements to make it feel more like a log cabin.

The inputs to the custom node can be seen below. There are inputs to flex the geometry of the cabin as well as inputs used to calculate the associated outputs.

These inputs are then fed into the custom node: AFrameCabinStructure. As mentioned before this is where the majority of the work is done.

AFrameCabinStructure can be seen below:

The green of this represents the dynamo logic to actually construct the A-Frame Cabin based on the geometrical inputs. Delving into these green groups we can see more clearly how the cabin is actually constructed.

The above node logic creates the roof structure including the panels and the associated roof beams. With the roof created, the columns can be made to connect the roof to the floor. The below node logic is used to do this.

The above description is a very high level overview of the logic to actually build the A-Frame Structure. With the structure created, the associated outputs can be evaluated and computed. The computation of the outputs is done again through another custom node called AFrameBldgOutputs. This custom node can be seen below integrated into the AFrameCabinStructure custom node.

AFrameBldgOutputs Custom Node:

This custom node takes in all the associated inputs and then produces all the relevant outputs used in the generative design tool.

The above node logic computes the volume of wood used which is useful when computing the cost of building materials and the embodied carbon of the structure. These metrics can be seen below:

The penultimate in this custom node include calculating the deflections of the roof under a design snow load typical of Tahoe California and also the max snow load the building can accommodate. These calculations are done using tributary areas, deflections under a uniform load, and Euler buckling principles. The logic can be seen below:

The last output is simply the volume of the A-Frame Cabin which can be done using one code block:

This concludes the logic to build the cabin and evaluate its performance. With the script created, a user can conduct a generative design study.

The inputs for the study have already been gone through in the above documentation. These can be selected in the generative design tool and are not pictured here.

The above represent the outputs which you can choose to maximize or minimize.

The results from the study can be manipulated however you like. The bottom scatterplot represents one array of inputs and outputs to plot. Many different scatterplots can be produced from this study which can inform you on the ideal geometry of your A-Frame cabin. The scatterplot above plots height of the roof, embodied carbon, deflection, and max snow load.