2 Units
I started by using the triangle example from the videos for my tower. I chose to constrain the top height manually, and flex the middle height of the tower. I found that this provided a variety of options, since it affects where the twist hits. Here are two examples of towers that I tested; I had a 1000’ top story height value, and chose to flex the mid height value between 300 and 600 to experiment with where the twist hit. The results of my analysis are shown below.
Then, I created a new form. I chose to go with a sort of four-sided start with concave sides; the original inspiration was somewhat derived from an F1 trophy I had seen before (see below). The parameters I defined were the length and width of the shapes. I originally defined a parameter for the radius of each curve, but I eventually decided that this was not worth including, primarily due to the geometry issues it caused. Once I brought it into the tower form, the main parameter I decided to investigate was the mid height parameter (between 300 and 700 feet); this had an impact on if the two sections were proportional or not, and resulted in some pretty interesting shapes. However, there were additional parameters defined, like the rotation of all 3 pieces, as well as the top height, but this was what I chose to investigate.
ANSWER: The advantage of exporting values to Excel is that it makes design alternatives clear and easy to evaluate from a quantitative perspective. If a client says they only want a building with a total GSF > 1,000,000 it makes it easy to see which versions satisfy this criteria.
Additionally, I decided to investigate different combinations of the mid height and mid rotation, as this again affects how the tower looks. This resulted in some interesting looking options, and some that I probably would not select, but it also resulted in some good looking ones. I also got an output table that shows the combinations of each of these parameters, seen below.
Bonus: After I found a form that I liked, I played around with some visual filters to add some texture and color, as well as some lighting and shadows options to reflect what the building might look like as I write this in Dubai, with respect to the sun position. Then I rendered the image, and the result is below.
3 Units
For this portion of the assignment, I opted to create a plus shape in Dynamo and use this as my form. I had parameters to control the radius of the plus sign in both directions, as well as the rotations at each level. For my two parameters, I chose to flex the base radius (I kept both directions the same here) and the middle rotation. I did this a bit differently from the tutorial, namely I created some sets of points and polygons from there.
After my forms were created and I had the statistics, I chose to add an additional functionality to display the geometry in Revit, where I again played around with some visual effects and shadows to give the shape an interesting effect.
The options below are for base radius of 30ft/mid rotation of 35 degrees (left), and base radius of 50ft/mid rotation of 40 degrees (right), as well as an additional image of my second tower under 8AM lighting in Dubai.
The results of my analysis are below.
ANSWER: In my experience, I found that the rotation of the middle section had the greatest effect on creating a desirable building type. This was mainly because if the building was over rotated, it started to look warped and weird. This might be a different story if I had tested different ranges of rotation angles, but for the range I chose, this is what I found. But, the base radius did also have a big effect, particularly if we were concerned about the feeling with respect to the ground.