Seattle Public Library

With the Seattle Public Library script, we are starting to get to a point that overlaps with Digital Projects. While, it is interesting to compare and contrast the two different programs in their use of spreadsheet integration, in this case Digital Projects may have been a better program to use. First we read the parameters for each of the building spaces out of a spreadsheet, and then apply the floor-height and floor-to-floor-height variables. This gives us a nice line along the origin of these boxes (not off of the center) from which to deviate. Here it may have been helpful to align all of the forms around their centers so that we would get a slightly more realistic final shape, without so much overhang. Then we randomly move all of the shapes along their XY-planes to create different versions, by changing the seed of this random number generator we get different variations. Lofting the edges of the different boxes creates the final form.

If we wanted to make this script a more sophisticated, we could tweak the amount that each box could deviate from the original axis so that we could not get some of the impossible overhangs that currently come out of the script. Another option is to parameterize the lofts so that each variation lofts automatically and uses a logical system. This would require some advanced coding, but it would be interesting to see when it could go. In this case the lofts would all have a particular logic and the building would optimize for different effects that the lofts can create, such as maximizing atrium space, minimizing material, etc.