
The Airshell Prototype
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
Bioinspired mathematical model to establish complex patterns for parametric facades
The facade is the skin that filters and promotes the interaction between the interior and exterior of the building.
During its conception process, one must understand environmental patterns, observe the incident climate, and propose solutions that consider the use of the building and take advantage of the climate´s opportunities, filtering advantages and disadvantages.
Facades are composed of opaque and transparent elements, closed and open, and the openings are the elements that promote the greatest connection between the external and internal environments.
Recent design explorations consider parametric modeling and digital fabrication as strategies to establish and manufacture complex facade solutions.
Nevertheless, these solutions often disregard their selective filtering function, thus the solutions are established frequently through aesthetic requirements.
The complexity of modeling the building skin solution associated with performance requirements hinders an approach compatible with bioclimatology, efficiency, and biomimetic requirements, as it increases the mathematical problem complexity for optimization processes associated with environmental characteristics.
This paper presents a mathematical model inspired by nature and its principles to simplify form-finding processes of complex solutions in responsive facades.
The result features a flexible simplified algorithm capable of generating patterns for any kind of shading devices and/or opening solution, in order to facilitate the modeling and optimization processes of facade solutions. The generated algorithm is applied using Python script, Grasshopper and Rhinoceros 3D.
According to Kolarevic, parametric design designates the use of parameters in the design process. Considering that any design process is based on parameters, the term can be redundant.
The term designates the use of associative digital models consisting of variable parameters and constraints.
Parameters can be numerical based on geometry, or process automation, and also performance-based, when associated with data analysis and analysis cycles.
The biomimetic design method is related to the performance-based design process since every natural solution is associated with its intrinsic performance, which is related to the formal characteristics of the solution.
Although still far from the efficiency of nature, the strategy of integrating the analytical steps with the generation of form through parametric modeling processes is an option to reproduce a principle that resembles the form and pattern definitions present in nature.
This paper by Alessandro Liuti, Sofia Colabella, and Alberto Pugnale, presents the construction of Airshell, a small timber gridshell prototype erected by employing a pneumatic formwork.
In this paper by Gregory Charles Quinn, Chris J K Williams, and Christoph Gengnagel, a detailed comparison is carried out between established as well as novel erection methods for strained grid shells by means of FE simulations and a 3D-scanned scaled physical model in order to evaluate key performance criteria such as bending stresses during erection and the distance between shell nodes and their spatial target geometry.
In this paper by Frederic Tayeb, Olivier Baverel, Jean-François Caron, Lionel du Peloux, ductility aspects of a light-weight composite gridshell are developed.
In this paper by Julian Lienhard, Holger Alpermann, Christoph Gengnagel and Jan Knippers structures that actively use bending as a self forming process are reviewed.
Parametric Tools for Architects & Designers @2025
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