ARCH655: Parametric Modeling Design
Fall, 2017
The Gherkin, London, UK:
30 St Mary Axe (informally known as The Gherkin and previously as the Swiss Re Building) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 stories, it is 180 meters (591 ft) tall and stands on the former sites of the Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping.
The splendid building was erected in the city's financial center of London. Its helical shape design makes better support the forces of strong wind around it and diverting it up. The 40 floors of the building that are being reduced in height, are not completely circular. The architect designed each concrete slab with a series of triangular sections, separating each platform in various wings, which facilitates the entry of natural light, thereby renewing the air with the help of parkland.
Figure 1. http://www.thegherkinlondon.com/
Basic Information:
Client: Swiss Reinsurance Company
Architect: Foster & Partners
Structural Engineer: Ove Arup Engineers
Height: 180 meters
Category: High-rise
Plants: 40
Area: 76,400 m²
Architectural Style: Eco-tech (Sustainable Architecture)
Drawings: © Foster + Partners
Images: © José Miguel Hernández Hernández
(All the images of the 30 St. Mary Axe here: Copyright © José Miguel Hernández Hernández Editor, Escritor y Fotógrafo de Arquitectura / Publisher, Writer and Architectural PhotographerTodos los derechos reservados / All rights reserved www.jmhdezhdez.com)
In this section, all steps of modeling the Gherkin with Grasshopper is explained.
Figure 2 The first step was creating a circle as the base and generating 40 copies for 40 stories.
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Figure 3 Next, using “Graph mapper” and “scale”, the outline of building geometry was generated.
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Figure 4 Using the points on the building's surface, some interpolated curves were created to give the facade a scheme of diamond pattern.
Figure 5 Flexing the model with changing the values of number sliders.
Figure 6 Using interpolated curves and lofted surfaces, diamond pattern frames were created on the facade.
Figure 7 "Lunchbox" package for grasshopper was installed to create diamond-based panels on the facade.
Figure 8 "Lunchbox" package for grasshopper was installed to create diamond-based panels on the facade.
Figure 9 Using conditional statement for creatig two different colors on the facade, as the actual building.
Figure 10 Using Kangaroo and WeaverBird for creating a parametric, physically-based model for this building (without the use of the physics engine).
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Figure 11 Using Kangaroo and WeaverBird for creating a parametric, physically-based model for this building (with the use of the physics engine).
Figure 12 Result of changing springs parameters
Figure 13 Analyzing the curved surfaces in terms of geometry using color-mapping.
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The challenges:
Creating the diamond pattern on the facade was the biggest challenge in this project. We needed to be able to select diamond-based ribbons on the facade surface and assign different colors to get a closer look to the actual building. We tried several methods such as using data structure and mesh node. The "Lunchbox" is a user-friendly package developed for Grasshopper that we used to create the desired facade panels.
Project video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp4qY_0rGq4
Creating the diamond pattern on the facade was the biggest challenge in this project. We needed to be able to select diamond-based ribbons on the facade surface and assign different colors to get a closer look to the actual building. We tried several methods such as using data structure and mesh node. The "Lunchbox" is a user-friendly package developed for Grasshopper that we used to create the desired facade panels.
Project video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp4qY_0rGq4
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