Venice, Italy: Conceptual Abandonment JEFF MCCABE
FALL 2024
While I was developing my Venice project, I was forced to abandon a design about halfway through the semester. The idea was abstract, insane, and very intriguing to me as a student, and still lingers in my brain after graduating. The form resembles a series of crystalized stones containing layers of thin floor plates. The contrasting elements depart from anything that exists in Venice, yet the programs remain rooted in Italian culture. Another concept present in the structure is the act of puncturing. I intended to stab walkways into the walls to make the public circulation purely elevated above the interior program. This was to ensure privacy for workers in the hot shops while forming intentional, unique entrances into these spaces. This, however, was deemed impossible due to ADA regulations. The other form of puncturing was cutting holes to allow a select amount of light into the hot shops, where direct light could interfere with the glass blowing processes.
In order to achieve the precise form I had envisioned, I created a custom Grasshopper script to experiment with different parameters such as ground floor shape, ceiling shape, height, etc. By inputting a curve from the ground floor and a curve for the ceiling, was able to instantly generate the entire shell structure. Through lots of testing, I had concluded that the bottom shape would be best as a square/rectangle to allow workers to efficiently fit the machines into their hot shops. The ceiling forms were a variety of polygons, ranging from 5 to 8 sides. More sides created more detail in the walls, which worked for larger building envelopes but not as well for smaller buildings in the complex.
Below is a diagram showing how the indexing system in the script creates an enclosure from any 2 shapes. Using this method, I was able to rapidly generate forms with similar styles.
All of my Grasshopper scripts are uploaded to Github. https://github.com/jeffmccabe16/gh
GF
3F
1F
2F