As a supporting course for the main architecture studio in RPI's B.ARCH program, Digital Constructs saw students develop their drawing, rendering, and modeling skills through weekly exercises. For my second semester, students chose a major work of religious architecture as the basis for study. Each week, the details of the architecture would be examined and reproduced in some way through drawing, modeling, or fabrication; eventually, students chose basic geometries from their source material and employed procedural, programming-based software to create a major architectural work of their own.
After choosing the Great Mosque of Cordoba as my case study, I spent the first half of the semester recreating a specific archway detail in Rhino 3D; the process saw me produce a detailed 2D drawing, a 3D model, and a CNC-milled Styrofoam section of the detail.
My midterm submission combined original elevation and section drawings (top), a 3D rendering (middle), and photos of a milled Styrofoam portion of the archway (bottom).
For the second half of the class, I chose distinct circle, bell, and corner shapes from the archway and used Rhino 3D's Grasshopper extension to procedurally generate abstract, mirrored compositions based on the input geometry. Choosing my favorite, I brought the forms into 3D space, and used them to model a massive, monumental composition that aimed to respond to the environment of enormous works of religious architecture.
This drawing displays the compositions created with the Grasshopper programming language, with the ten iterations (left) beside my chosen version, with the lighter basic framework left visible.
The forms from the above drawing were transformed into an architectural site of their own, with a few section cuts (left), a visitor's perspective (top right), and a worm's-eye view (bottom right).
