My YouTube channel (this course and my other courses)
Summary
Computational Methods is a course I taught at the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte. This website is a repository for the files and videos from the Fall 2012, 2013, and 2014 versions of the course. I am placing these files online for our students and for anyone else who is interested in the subject.
The goal of the course is to introduce students to the fundamental ideas of computational design, as a supplement to 3D modeling and a foundation for later work with topics such as BIM, advanced digital fabrication, and computational analysis within our program. To this end, we explore parametric design using the Grasshopper plugin for Rhinoceros, through an extensive series of lectures, labs, and projects. It is both comprehensive -- in that we cover the majority of the functions in Grasshopper and the concepts and theory behind them -- and not comprehensive, in that this still only scratches the surface of what might fall under the heading of "computation."
Method
This is a 14 week course, which follows a typical progression from the start to end of the school week: 1.) skills are introduced early in the week with a video; 2.) we have an interactive lab, where students work together to answer questions about a series of "lab problems"; these extend the skills from the video, while encouraging students to ask questions about the parametric processes they interact with and implement; 3.) lectures explain concepts from the videos and labs and place them in an architectural and computational design context. In addition, two major projects encourage students to conduct independent explorations and demonstrate their mastery of key ideas and techniques.
Notes and Disclaimers
Please do not ask me to help you with your coursework! I will not respond to these kinds of requests.
Computational Methods used Rhino v4 SR9 and Grasshopper v0.8.006 - both of which are out of date as of this writing (January 2015), but were stable for the most part when I was teaching the course. The files and techniques here may or may not work with newer versions, but the concepts I teach in the course are universal and have some value regardless.
Disclaimer: I will not troubleshoot anything on this website and will most likely not update this information, except in future versions of the course, found elsewhere. Everything here is provided as is. I am not responsible for any issues that might arise from its use such as problems with your computer or files.