Buy This Book

Karen Kensek and Doug Nobel, professors at USC, put together an impressive list of contributors to their new book entitled Building Information Modeling:  BIM in Current and Future Practice.  The book is an expansive look at BIM and it's influence over all facets of the building life cycle.  Topics covered in the book include BIM in relation to design thinking, analytics, performance, and building delivery.

Daniel Davis and I teamed up to put together a chapter entitled "Performance Art:  Analytics and the New Theater of Design Practice".  In the chapter we discuss the challenges and opportunities that Building Information-centric approaches offer for achieving performance-driven design and high-performance teams.

Check it out!  You can buy it through Wiley or Amazon.com

Extreme BIM @ USC

I have been invited to give a talk at USC's annual BIM symposium. This year, the topic is...

Extreme BIM: Parametrics and Customization

My lecture is titled Dataspaces and Uncertainty... in no way did I draw those words out of a hat at random. I will be discussing recent work at NBBJ, my Slingshot! project, and other observations on computation in practice.

The speaker list includes experts from around Los Angeles on the topic of parametric design and computation.

Participating firms include Perkins+Will, Morphosis, Gehry Partners, Gensler, Thornton Tomasetti, Buro Happold... and more!

Visit the website for a full speaker list and schedule.

USC ARCH 517: Spring 2011

I am pleased to announce that I will be returning to the USC spring semester line up to teach a 5-week seminar on the use of Grasshopper and Galapagos.

Keep an eye on The Proving Ground Wiki for course information.

Feedback Cloud Lecture: Teaser Image 01

My lecture for the BIM Analytics symposium will demonstrate a series of methodologies for achieving a performance-driven design and collaboration process.

As a teaser... here is one technique that I will demonstrate showing an "ecology" of tools in use at once.
The tools are connected together and sharing information using inter-process communication.

More 'teasers' to come....

A change to the Rhino surface will update the connected software environments creating a dynamic design-analyze-document process.

1. Rhino (surface design)
2. Grasshopper (surface rationalization, inter-process communication control)
3. Ecotect (Solar analysis)
4. AutoCAD (2D Panel documentation)

Credit: [uto] were the first ones to figure out the process for connecting Grasshopper to Ecotect and were generous enough to provide me with information on how Ecotect could be accessed remotely using DDE. The particular components depicted in the image are custom made 'from scratch' to suit my specific needs.

For those of you interested in a similar kind of Ecotect-Grasshopper DDE link, please refer to [uto]'s Grasshopper plug-in: Geco.

For those of you interested in the COM connection to AutoCAD, you may find some sample code in my post here.

Info on my BIM Analytics lecture: Feedback Cloud

USC BIM Conference Lecture: Feedback Cloud

I am pleased to announce that I have been invited to give a lecture at USC's 2010 BIM Conference: BIM Analytics.

My lecture is tentatively titled: Feedback Cloud: Tactics for Toolset Integration and Design Optimization.

The talk will outline the digital processes used on some recent NBBJ projects as well describe a few experiments for creating performance-driven design solutions in a team made up of diverse participants using a multitude of tools.

By coordinating customized tools and workflows, Feedback Cloud.....
1. Embraces technological difference within a team.
2. Provides an adaptive framework for design change and variation.
3. Links together design and analysis for a performance-driven process.

My talk is tentatively scheduled on Wednesday, August 4th @ 1:30-2:00.
The conference is free, however you will need to RSVP here.

Speakers at the conference include...

architecture + engineering
Rachelle Villalon, Jenna Knudsen, and Alex Korter, CO Architects
Erin McConahey, ARUP
Mitch Dec, David Summers, and Tianxin Xing, Glumac

construction
Jim Bedrick, Webcor
Viktor Bullain, Turner Construction
Jonathan Widney, Solibri
Darren Roos, Suffolk Construction Company, Inc.

parametrics / performance based or algorithmic based design
Nathan Miller, NBBJ
Kurt Komraus, Buro Happold

integration, standards, the big picture
Richard Nowicki, NTD Architecture
Lance Lareau, San Diego CCD
Michael Rendler, e7 Studio at LACCD
Chuck Good-Man, Irwin Partners Architects

USC ARCH 517: Featured Student Work

Visit The Proving Ground Wiki
....to see the results of the 5 week USC Grasshopper course!

USC Arch 517 Grasshopper Course: It's Alive!

We are now half-way through the 5-week Grasshopper course at USC and The Proving Ground Wiki is coming alive!

Students are posting their experiments,the forum is becoming quite active, and class materials are being made available to download.... have a look!

Student: Mohamed El Sheikh
Student: Eve Lin

Student: Jeffrey Vaglio

The Proving Ground Wiki: USC Arch 517 Class

To coincided with my 5-week Grasshopper seminar at USC, I have created The Proving Ground Wiki. The purpose is to encourage experimentation and collaboration among the students enrolled in the course. As the course moves forward, the wiki will evolve with new content in the form of diagrams, descriptions, and Grasshopper files.

The Proving Ground Wiki

Have a look.... and check back throughout April to see how the class is going!

Grasshopper Course @ USC

I am happy to announce that I will be teaching a 5 week Grasshopper course at the University of Southern California.

The class will begin in April 2010. Stay tuned for details!

USC Parametric Lecture and GH Mini-Tutorial

On Monday, I presented a lecture on parametric techniques in practice followed by a tutorial on Grasshopper. The presentation was for Jeffrey Kim's Rhino course. Jeff is an instructor and principal of Forward Design. The students were enthused by the technology and were quick to pick up some of the basics of GH. I introduced the same panel exercise as I did before with my office (NBBJ).

Panel exercise by Jeffrey Chinn

Panel exercise by Patrick Wong