Open Form Architecture Blog

I was fas­ci­na­ted by a post from Avery, a high school math teacher in the US, ca­lled Ha­bits of Mind. It has a great way of sum­ming up a mathe­ma­ti­cal thin­king pro­cess that can be ap­plied to other dis­ci­pli­nes, es­pe­cially design.

There is another great event co­ming in Ca­na­dian his­tory, our 150th birth­day in 2017. This is es­pe­cially a chance to re­de­fine what Ca­nada is and where the country is hea­ding. As archi­tects and ur­ba­nists, it is a chance to de­fine our vi­sion for ci­ties in our nor­dic cli­mate and vast geo­graphy, and to con­si­der the ur­ban im­pli­ca­tions of our new de­mo­graphic cha­rac­te­rist from years of con­ti­nual im­mi­gra­tion. An ins­pi­ring and thought pro­vo­king call-to-action from Pe­ter Mac­Leod (vi­deo) at MASS LBP at TEDx To­ronto is worth watching.

I think that this is a great op­por­tu­nity for Ca­na­dian de­sig­ners to chan­nel ef­forts into rec­rea­ting and re­freshing a vi­sion to our society.

2010.01 // Sta­giai­res Recherchés

Archi­tec­ture Open Form est à la recherche de co­lla­bo­ra­teurs étu­diants afin de pour­suivre une recherche sur la fa­bri­ca­tion numé­ri­que. Nous recherchons, si pos­si­ble, des per­son­nes qui con­nais­sent les lo­gi­ciels Rhi­no­ce­ros ou au­tre lo­gi­ciels de pro­gram­ma­tions ou 3D. Nous de­vons faire des ma­quet­tes à par­tir de modè­les numé­ri­ques sur des ap­pa­reils tels que dé­coupe au la­ser ou CNC mi­lling machi­nes. Nous de­vons aussi ter­mi­ner no­tre pro­pre CNC et la tes­ter afin de fa­bri­quer des ma­quet­tes ou tou­tes sor­tes de for­mes com­ple­xes. Cette co­lla­bo­ra­tion sera pour vous une chance de faire vos heu­res de stage ou bien de pra­ti­quer ce genre de tech­ni­ques avec les nou­veaux ou­tils – AOF est la seule firme ou pres­que à tra­vai­ller de ce genre au Québec.

S’il vous plaît con­tac­tez Mau­rice Mar­tel au bu­reau AOF.

2010.01 // In­terns Needed

Open Form Archi­tec­ture is see­king stu­dent in­tern co­lla­bo­ra­tors to help with di­gi­tal fa­bri­ca­tion re­search. Our ideal can­di­date al­ready has some know­ledge of Rhi­no­ce­ros 3D and other 3D soft­wa­res and an in­te­rest in pa­ra­me­tric mo­de­ling and sc­rip­ting. We need to build phy­si­cal mo­dels from di­gi­tal mo­dels using nu­me­rous pro­ces­ses inc­lu­ded la­ser cut­ting and CNC mi­lling. Also inc­lu­ded is the buil­ding of our own in-house CNC machine to test dif­fe­rent fa­bri­ca­tion pro­ces­ses and com­plex sha­ping. This co­lla­bo­ra­tion is a chance to count your pro­fes­sio­nal in­ternship hours and to prac­tice these new form-making tech­ni­ques with new tools and soft­wa­res –OFA is one of the few of­fi­ces in Qué­bec to use such tools.

Please con­tact Mau­rice Mar­tel at the OFA of­fice.

The CNC Machine pro­to­toype at the SAIC, Chi­cago; Photo by DIYLILCNC

At Open Form we’re busy coor­di­na­ting our cons­truc­tion of our first CNC machine, the DIYLILCNC. It’s an open source DIY pro­ject de­ve­lo­ped by Ch­ris and Tal­yor — two staf­fers at the SAIC — School of the Art Ins­ti­tute of Chi­cago. The 3-axis machine has a cut­ting area of 12″ x 14″ x 2″ (x,y,z), but these li­mits can be pla­yed with crea­ti­vely. We have all the parts on or­der, and will post more when we have pho­tos of the pro­ject and our ex­pe­ri­ments. In the mean time, if you’re in­te­res­ted in buil­ding the machine, we have star­ted a post on the web­site for Buil­ding a LILDIYCNC Machine in Ca­nada.

I have been wor­king on de­ve­lo­ping a set of ef­fi­cient Rhino3D Short­cut Alia­ses (Goo­gle Code link) for Rhi­no­ce­ros 3D, ver­sion 4.0. These are ba­sed on the work of Max­wan Archi­tects + Ur­ba­nists in Rot­ter­dam, and their long-term de­ve­lop­ment of Au­to­CAD short­cuts that you can down­load from Dysturb.Net. I have de­ve­lo­ped the Rhino3D sys­tem in pa­ra­llel for ease of in­terchange bet­ween the two softwares.

The ins­ta­lla­tion is sim­ple, and fully ex­plai­ned on the Goo­gle Code page (link above). You simply im­port the .txt file and overw­rite the de­faults. A Mic­ro­soft Ex­cel file shows the list of used com­mands (and unu­sed com­mands for fu­ture de­ve­lop­ment). Feel free to make sug­ges­tions on further commands!

We will pre­sent our la­test work at the Spe­cial Edi­tion of Pecha Kucha Montréal, as part of the Por­tes Ou­ver­tes De­sign Montréal. The event will take place at the SAT — So­ciety for Arts and Tech­no­logy on the 3rd May 2008. The doors open at 20:00 and OFA will be the first pre­sen­ters, star­ting promptly at 20:20.

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