Portfolio 2021 (Parametric Addendum)

PARAMETRIC JOURNEY A supplementary Architectural Portfolio into the exploration of usage of parametric computation in architectural design

Spatial joints/Tower structure

Digital Design & Fabrication / Architectural Structure & Enclosure Design Year: 2018 Site: Duration: 3 months Mentors: Stylianos Dritsas, Sam Conrad Joyce Groupmates: Cheska Nodado, Sandra Chan, Anirudh Rathi This was a project that I did in 2018, back when I was still learning grasshopper. It has always been a goal of mine since I started learning Grasshopper this very term that I wanted to be able to be half as good as the professors in my school were. This render here is a revisitation of a project and code I had always tried but failed to replicate in my undergrad years.

Revisiting this project however, I was finally able to reconstruct the code that Prof. Carlos Banon had kindly assisted my group with, and I felt a sense of accomplishment at how my grasshopper coding skills had improved over time.

The goal of the project was to be able to erect a tower as tall as possible, while stabilizing it in various ways. For ease of construction, we decided on 3D printed joints, utilizing rounded broomstick wood for construction of the tower, cut to size from a standardized length for the entire tower. A total of 69 unique joints were printed, owing to the way that the tower twisted upward. However, the tolerances we fabricated with for this project were too large, which affected the stability of the tower.

Computational Logic

1. In exploring recreating the joint, the axes along which the wood would be joined were first established, along with the nodes.

2. For the sake of visualization/ understanding, circles as the cross section area of the joint were placed equidistant from the node.

3. Using the point cloud created by the subdivision of the circles, a convex hull is lofted between all the circles.

4. Circles are then offset with variable radii for the opening, depending on the size of the bamboo (for visualization’s sake, I made it the same here)

5. The circles are then extruded with an extension into that of the convex hull to allow for boolean tolerances.

6. The components are then boolean unioned together to form the joint.

The facing page explains the exploration made into utilization and optimzation of the joint with regards to it being utilized for a bamboo pavillion structure, sans resolution of the way that it joins to panels at the top.

1. The nodes in a branch structure are first established by finding the points that are repeated, and then the corresponding branches identified, then segmented into sub-lists to be dealt with as individual nodes.

2. A segment of the branches are taken, to establish each structure as individual components, and to have a marker to which the length of the connector can be estimated.

3. After, a sphere is placed at the node to calculate the planes at which circles are placed at, although to prevent internal collisions/strengthen prints, the spheres can be of varying radii to cater to each point, but for ease of visualization are calculated to be equidistant.

4. Once again, a convex hull is created and the prior steps from 4-5 are repeated to form a joint, of up to 8 separate axes.

Analysis on the Maha Nakhon

History, Theory and Culture 3 Year: 2018 Site: Bangkok, Thailand Duration: 3 months Mentors: Felix Raspall Groupmates: Soh Jun Xian, Toh Sing Ru This was a project that I did in 2018.

Back then, there was a plugin called Yellow, which I played around with to experiment with voxelization techniques and agglomeration to understand how the external spiral had been generated, and the forms that resulted from the subtraction of said voxels from a solid tower block and podium structure.

In addition, this project explored the structural methods that were used to construct the building as a result of its unique voxel pattern.

Explorations on fields

Core Studio 3 Year: 2018 Site:Punggol, Singapore Duration: 2 weeks Mentors: Trevor Ryan Patt Groupmates: Nanfei, Toh Sing Ru Using an L-shaped site in Punggol, the group was tasked with exploring fields and how parametric design could be used to generate forms. Using key entry points to the L-shaped site from the surrounding housing and keeping an idea of communal space, the group explored using height maps, circles, and as well as lines and blocks as elements to be scattered around the site as attractor or repulsor points.

Custom curtain wall

M.Arch Structured Internship Year: 2019 Site: Manila, The Philippines Duration: 2 days Mentors: Pan Yicheng From a 2D curve of detailing the placement of the wall, circles of varying radii are packed onto it. Following which, Kangaroo is used to pull the circles to each other to ensure that there is no overlaps and a smooth, curtain like curve can be formed to be fabricated using CNC-ed gypsum as shown in the final result above.

Sample of how the code performs on a curve

Parametric rumah ibu

M.Arch Structured Internship Year: 2019 Site: Indonesia Duration: 1 week Mentors: Pan Yicheng Following 3 days of research into the different types of rumah ibu pertaining to the indigenous cultures in the Indonesian Archipelago, I was tasked to explore how to parametricize the most basic type of Rumah Ibu. Taking a regular platform, beams of varying lengths are then joined in a fan like pattern across regular lengths of wood to form the roof and give support. In this, the size of the platform, the height that it is raised above the ground to prevent water damage, the height of the rumah ibu are all permutable. Hence, modules of various sizes and requirements can be created to form part of a housing complex according to the hierarchy defined by traditional Malay culture.

thank you!