Grasshopper & Archicad Learning: Computational BIM for Concept Design


Dear Friends and lovers of Architecture and design!
Last week we organised in collaboration with TGIC the first of many webinars explaining some of the different workflows possible between rhino/grasshopper and Archicad. The result of this sessions was a very interesting conversation with the attendants and Vignesh (who is himself an expert on computational design) on top of the tutorial that we had prepared for the occasion. 90 minutes of sharing and passionate dialogue about different uses of this connection and some awesome features built-in inside Archicad.

Although the format of this conference was different to our usual “free sharing” style, due the amount of work put into the preparation of the course and also the cost itself of the webinars, we managed to congregate a quite large and active group of designers and architects from pretty much every corner of the world, broadcasting three sessions for the different time zones. Two of them live!
The topic of the webinar was building a parametric tower, going through some prepared files in grasshopper and learning in detail the different methods and some advanced tips about how to make work the Grasshopper connection and how to make use of grasshopper for some specific settings as creating parametric floor story settings, using the graph mapper to apply variable movement to slab contour points and some others.

 

Once in Archicad, we deeply explored the use of the custom properties…The great advantage of this workflow is that diagrams and schedules remain linked to the latest version of the geometry, driven by the script!

Once in Archicad, we deeply explored the use of the custom properties linked to the graphics override and the Grasshopper based geometry to create parametric colour diagrams that react to properties controlled by the grasshopper script. The great advantage of this workflow is to once the designer decide the documentation and information that want to display, the diagrams and schedules remain linked to the latest version of the geometry, driven by the script!


After that, we also experimented the huge advantages of using complex profiles to further detail a simple model, without having to perform almost any further modelling inside grasshopper or Archicad. That adds one more “layer of parametricity” keeping also the model parametric inside Archicad, where we can decide at any moment the level of detail of our project.

Being smart, we can use the same 3 or 4 curves scripted in Grasshopper to create numerous native BIM elements inside Archicad, showing a great level of detail with very little effort for concept design phase!

We as enzyme are always going to keep sharing and trying to enrich the Archicad community with free tips and tutorials and great real-life case studies, nevertheless, we also want to try this paid format, that allows us to spend much more time preparing materials that can be shared with the public, solving questions live and creating content of much more quality.
Also please check the platform our friend Vignesh is building to spread the knowledge on computational design and architecture and subscribe to his newsletter where he shares the best-curated content on Computational design and tools for architecture and the construction industry.
If you are interested in the webinar, you can still get access to the recorded session here! And please give us your feedback, questions and ideas for new tutorials, videos or webinars.
Many thanks for reading us and keep an eye on our facebook page and the blog for the new tutorials! Stay tuned for a coming “free access” to the recorded session that we will give away on a tiny facebook draw!