Fall 2020 Online Exhibition of the MIM 417: Parametric Design I
Başkent University, Department of Architecture
PARAMETRIC JOY
Joy - noun
1. [U] great happiness
2. [C] a person or thing that causes happiness
3. [U] success, action, or help
Cambridge English Dictionary
As a result of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, we are spending more time at our homes. The Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo claims that we should keep only the objects that spark joy in our homes1. In this project, you are asked to design a 3D parametric object for home use that sparks joy for its user(s). The parametric object is also expected to serve for some purpose. Conforming to these two criteria, the object can be anything that you can imagine. You will develop a concept and a scenario for the use of the object in a real-life setting. Your concept is the philosophical background of your approach and can be represented by the name of your project, key terms, mottos, manifestos, diagrams, etc. Your scenario is your vision about the potential uses of your design and can be explained by visionary sketches, collages, and perspectives.
1 Kondo, M. (2016). Spark joy: an illustrated guide to the Japanese art of tidying. Random House.
Pawsome Ground is a parametric hut and playground that can be used in the garden of the house. The Pawsome Ground creates a space for dogs to move around in the garden without the need to go outside, allowing dogs to define their own space. Pawsome Ground's curved form and linear elements are designed in such a way that dogs can adjust their pace. Linear elements can be covered with a surface to protect them from environmental factors.
I designed a bench for adults and children. While I was creating the flowerpot and carrier task on the bench with the soft edit surf command, I designed the compartments I made to put something into it using voronoi. Thus, I have obtained a design that strengthens the relationship between nature and human.
People start to use separators such as visors as well as masks in order to maintain their social distance during the pandemic process. Within the scope of this project, using visor-like separators, it is aimed to ensure that people could stay together more safely without interrupted visual connection also by using urban furniture used in daily life. These separators are placed in the intervals of the modules that make up the urban furniture and people have enough space for their use. Four main curves shape the backbone of the urban furniture designed within the scope of the course. By combining the skews formed between these curves and dividing them at certain intervals, modules that make up the urban furniture are formed. By changing the location and dimensions of these four main curves in the coordinate plane, urban furniture can change according to different design purposes and different relationship scenarios.
When creating the parametric seat, we will actually foresee its use for more than one function. While the seat will have a section for lying down, it will also have a section where you can sit more upright to work and, in normal times, it will have different sections that you can sit more comfortably. After determining these functions, when we consider the ergonomic dimensions of the sitting areas, we see that they are formed with different shapes and sizes. And in fact, these differences will be important parameters for us while creating our parametric seat.
“Serenity” Acoustic Panel is a responsive system designed for improving acoustical performances of spaces under different conditions.
The educational mind game is developed for preschool children to enable them to perceive the shapes and sizes of the objects. While 4 of 6 surfaces serve the purpose of play, the remaining surfaces are designed as a chair and table accessible by children. Whilst the game was designed it's weight and height are specially designed according to children's height parameter with helps of magnets inside. The magnets hold the surfaces together in order to avoid them falling apart.
This definition creates a lamp by using voronoi to create different shadows with patterns. By treating the voronoi component as a specific structure, it creates the lamp itself with this pattern. However, the designed lamp creates different shadows and atmospheres with the light placed in it.
This definition creates a chair which can adapt itself the way you sit on it. This parametric chair is adaptive to weight. It deforms and also creates voronoi pattern through an attractor. To make it more clear, it is deforming through an attractor curve. This curve defines the person’s weight that touches the seat. When there is no attractor curve, the geometry turns back to its basic form.
We are in a period where technology is advancing rapidly recently. The project I designed is an object where technology meets time. I also added light to it. Digital lamp differentiating in different time periods. While it gives less light in the first hours of the day, it turns on more and gives more light in the later hours. I set it every two hours. I did it with Grasshopper’s anemone. Because it helped me keep the loop and create the change.
This definition creates a seat by using the structure system of the sphere. With the pandemic that entered our lives, we began to spend more of our time at comfort zones such as home. Mostly, sitting or lying on seats. We also started to spend more time with our pets within this time. so, ı decided that my design is a comfortable seat for all. when I've considered all off this, I did not cover all this seat's surfaces and I made a structural design in the lower part of the seat. With this, the bottom part of the frame design has also become a playground for animals. I have enclosed the seating areas to make it easy to relax and have fun.
This definition creates a parametric lamp using octree method. It creates a template where we can control the process using different variables. The lands are assigned to random points in the prism we have created by dividing at each stage. When the size of the priism changes, the frames adapt to it. so we create a lamp making tool. We can control the size, density and scale of the units.
The purpose of making this design was to give people a slightly different atmosphere during the pandemic process we are in. Because, when I buy a Christmas lamp in my own house, the lamp immediately changes my mood and I start to feel good. I used colored plastic material to make this lamp for users to feel the same.
I made an enormous table that feels fantastic emotions, by alternating a spiky surface and integrating it into a table structure.
A lighted pen holder with a perforated outer shell. The pens are attached to the holes in the shell and can be selected more easily with the help of light when selecting the pens in the dark. When the pens are not placed, it turns into a night light.
The system has been designed for reminding people when the plants must be watered. The flowerpot has detected the humidity in the soil, due to the soft surface that it has. Because of the soft surface that flowerpot has, it can detect the humidity in the soil. Therefore, the flowerpot has shown the amount of water that plant need in its surface by three stages. Designed for visually warn the people. In other words, the water that a plant needs has been shown by flowerpot.
I wanted to start my design process in a way that would appeal to people's eye pleasure and be useful, especially in their homes during this time. First of all, I turned to a more aesthetic and useful design than the usual table feet by using parameters. For the top of my coffee table, I also functioned by revealing a fun shape that I created using parameters.
I designed a piece of urban furniture, a playground for children. The most important feature of this area is that it is designed using the facet dome and dots component. With the Dots component, there are balls in the center of the field for children to play. Besides, with the Facet command, pipes for the trampoline are formed on the playground. In this way, children can both use the trampoline and use the bottom of the trampoline as a tent and play with the balls that can grow and shrink in the center.
This definition is a coffee table design for our animals and us, which gives us happiness during this period we spend more time in our homes. It provides a union where we can watch their cute state more comfortably while sitting, and they can sleep or pamper them. So it is a design for a happy union.
I designed a shelf for architecture students to put their materials. The most important feature of this shelf is that it is designed using the voronoi diagram. With the Voronoi diagram, the shelf is divided into itself. In this way, the shelf allows objects to stay on the shelf, while at the same time it allows hanging objects such as t-ruler thread.
I designed this object both as a shelf and as an illuminated table for architecture students to use. A multi-purpose object.
I can say that this table idea came to my mind from my problem at home. So as an architecture student, I needed a light table and I can say it still is from time to time. Assuming that the study room is also on the north facade, it is a cold room so I wanted to combine these two. In other words, a cylindrical leg with a hollow surface that will house a lighted table and a heater under it, I thought that I would both warm up and work. Whenever I want, I can study on this table without turning on the light, just warming up. And I said that if it is a table leg, if it has a hollow structure, let it give the heat of the electric heater system inside and if there is a table under it, let them work together with that heater inside, it will both heat and transfer the heat to me from the surfaces I have created with voronoi. If there is a glass table on it, let it be illuminated with the light of the two-storey heater and it can be used as a drawing table by turning on the light when the environment is required.
This is a middle table which is 45 cm above the floor and it has 135 cm diameter. Table legs designed by removing one edge of every hexagon. When placing the table legs, hexagons are rotated for visual beauty. A circle shaped glass placed on to design table legs.
I produced a design that can be used both as a bookcase and as a coffee table. Although the glass on the coffee table can be opened and closed, the 4 compartments formed in it are for ornamental purposes and the spaces between them are used to put books.
Mirrored Table: Since the shape of the table we will create will be completely optional, we can draw the shape we want by using the suppline command. Here I have opted for an irregular hexagon. Then I copied the pattern of this hexagon and the spaces that will give the parametric folds with the suppline command and copied 10 units up in the z plane. In order to provide parametric folds on the parts of the table that will touch the ground, I deleted the parts that were not useful for me and my base was formed.
I designed a bench that can be used in open areas such as a garden. I placed a section on the curve and produced it by dividing the curve with vertical planes and multiplying these sections. I entered variable values for the points that make up the section. The bank can be used as a sheltered place to spend time with its back and top cover. It supports the interaction and communication of people. With the variable values that make up the section, the top cover can be produced in different ways. For example, it can be produced according to the direction of the sun.
This lamp is formed by dividing a branch rising from a center into 3 branches and dividing each branch into 3 within itself. These separations are repeated 3 times, forming all the branches of this lamp and illuminating the room with the bulbs at the end of the each branch.
I designed an urban furniture for everyone. The most important feature of this design is that it is created in the form of a spiral. In this way, the user can dominate his environment with a wider perspective from his seat. And this feature supports the goal of increasing the communication between people, which is my first goal in design. Another feature is the partitioning of surfaces using the voronoi diagram. Because these clusters formed with voronoi give these surfaces a function. And with this function gained by furniture, people do not just sit on the furniture but use it as a box in the city.