So here it is:

1. Theoretical framework
   This is actually slides for a lecture, so it doesn’t make as much sense as it could if had been designed with being read in mind. That said I think if you use a bit of imagination then it is a pretty useful place to get started.
2. Making a reactive component & Programming a scribble
   These have a long history, he reactive component tutorial was first written sitting in the Qi cafe in Oxford to use with Kathrine Findlay‘s students at Dundee university. Since then it’s been through more than 20 major revisions and I’ve used to teach a huge number of people, so it should have a fair few of the kinks ironed out. However, I haven’t updated it for a while, so there are some changes to the interface, mainly the look of the buttons, and that the ctrl+clicking is no longer needed.
   It is both tutorials in one PDF. There are also videos to go along with both of these: 
   • Reactive component video tutorial.
   • Scribble By Function video tutorial.
3. Fabrication planning tuorial This was written sitting in the Sydney Botanic Gardens with my laptop plugged into a post and then the wire hidden under a bag so that the rangers didn’t see it! It was for Anthony Burke‘s masters of advanced architecture students. It’s quite simple, but just gives a bit more practice with GC, and starts you thinking about making real things.
4. Scripting fundamentals
   This explains a few things about scripting that are not about what to write to make the computer work, but more about how to write code that makes your life easier, formatting, commenting etc.
5. Testing
   This is the modelling equivelent of the scripting fundamentals tutorial, it is essentially theoretical/philosophical, so it leaves you to apply the idea in your own way. It tells you about how to think about your project to avoid getting bitten later.
6. Strategies – These two are about how to make planar quads. They are a bit light, and becasue GCuser is no more, there are no example files. I’ll try to make some one day.
   • strategies series – ensuring planarity with torus patches
   • strategies series – ensuring planarity with sheared cones
7. End
   By this point you know everythign there is to know about GC.
   Whaaaat, not a chance! Keep playing, and go to the forum and post a lot of questions. Rob Woodbury‘s website (and book – Elements of Parametric Design) has a load of great stuff too.

So there you go. There are lots of other tutorials out there, and if you think that one would slide into this sequence well then let me know and I’ll link it in there.

With Flora’s ubimash work there is already a substantial technical basis for this work so there is a great possibility to do some really interesting user-focused work.

As always, it was lovely to be back on home turf, and I hope that these scrawlings are useful.

This is a bit of a UTS architecture classic, I think I first heard about it from Adrian Lahoud and Tarsha Finney a few years ago, and Friday’s class was the first chance I’ve had to really try it out.

The format is simple, split the class in half, and sit the two halves facing each other. Then get them to talk about their ideas for 4 minutes. I had everyone sitting pretty close together – it gets pretty noisy but it seems to pump up the endergy a bit. Once the 4 minutes is up you get one side of the group to rotate. Then start again.

It got good feedback from the class. It's almost too easy, it feels a bit like cheating! Because of the short time and high energy the ideas seem to flow so quickly. There is a bit of a problem with how to rearange the group so that the static ones get to talk to each other too, but I'd imagine that once I get around to reading group theory in the bedroom I'll have a way to fix that.

I had an odd number so I popped the odd one off the end and gave them a 4 minute write up session so that they could capture their ideas.

I’ve already got

and

	WHY vs WHY Nuclear Power Barry Brook (YES) vs Ian Lowe (NO)
and
	Sustainable Energy – without the hot air, David JC MacKay

as the main texts for the debate. The first book is specifically Australian, but the second is UK focused (but only really from a data point of view). I’d like to include some contrarian texts too, the two that come to mind are

	The False Promise of Green Energy, by Andrew Morriss, William T. Bogart and Roger E. Meiners
and
	The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley

but I haven’t read either of them, and I’d be interested to hear what other people recommend, and what they think of the books mentioned.

The current motion for the debate is: “this house believes that Australia’s energy supply mix is doing just fine the way it is” and I’m a bit worried that nobody will come to support the motion with any enthusiasm.

I’ll be posting more studio related bits as it gets going, but I’d love some suggestions.

This diy toy kit lets people make something, and hold it in their hands, and then put it back into the computer a few times until it is perfect.

Take a look at the archive, there are hundreds!

I have a feeling that once you’d made a couple of these then you’d have a good grasp of how to unfold wonder woman to put an awesome tattoo of an eagle on her thigh.

It might even build into a bigger teaching scheme for animation, camera matching, compositing. Anything…

brave students play with the noise

I did an introduction to programming as a part of the design process to the Brookes second year architects this morning.

The presentation material that went with the lecture is here.

Hopefully the message that it is possible to do cool fun stuff without being a mega geek and hiding your bedroom came across.

His thesis was about the use of evolutionary algorithms to explore design options, more specifically with evaluation driven by environmental parameters. His project work was focused around finding widow configurations that satisfied certain lighting criteria, using ecotect analysis as the fitness evaluation.

He doesn’t have any server space, so I’m putting his work up here.

this is the thesis pdf (low res raster images for small file)

the lua code

and a summary doc

This is a video of the scribble tutorial.

It takes you through creating geometry ‘byFunction’ so that you have a new level of control. Then it covers ‘graph functions’, and how they can be used as any other function to provide data to a standard input.

The quality is a bit ropey, but that comes form the compression. the capture is beautiful, so if anyone knows about compressing screen shots from premier pro then let me know!