The evening of March 18th found me at the AIA New York Chapter's Center for Architecture, where the Be Careers Network was pleased to sponsor a GenerativeComponents Showcase event.
Students from Stevens Institute of Technology's Product Architecture Lab shared their projects with an audience of over one hundred local design professionals, professors, and students.
All of the projects leveraged the design power of GenerativeComponents, and were as diverse as they were impressive--especially given the students are only at the midterm review point of the semester.
John Nastasi, Director of the Product-Architecture Program, opened the program with some words about the interdisciplinary graduate program (http://www.stevens.edu/ses/academics/graduate_studies/interdisciplinary/product_architecture.html) .
Instructors Gil Akos and Ronnie Parsons, the instructors for the Performative Environments class, then introduced each student presentation.
To provide just a glimpse of one of the many excellent student projects:
Greg Denisiuk and Nelson Hernandez's "Heat + Harvest" tackles the creation of an environmental design with modular components that offset heating and cooling costs, through a combination of Fresnel lenses and cells within a self-shading aperture. The solid state system requires no internal moving components because the aperture geometry is specific to the site and solar study. The design team utilizes GC's parametric modeling environment, in conjunction with environmental analysis tools, to find the optimal solution: "Each cell provides natural ambient light, insulation from the outside environment, seasonal dependent heating or shading, and power generation through solar radiation."
Makai Smith, Product Manager for Generative Components, comments "It was great to see what the students have been doing with GenerativeComponents. They each have very challenging projects that take advantage of GC's ability to relate design geometry to an underlying logic. Students at Stevens are using GC to take advantage of digital fabrication to explore models that show an active environmental response. There is a wide range of work in the studio but it all shows a focus clarity in choosing parameters that can drive a dynamic logic to create forms which perform. It is very exciting work and I'm looking forward to more at the end of the semester."
Next week will find me at Yale for yet another GC Showcase, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, here are some more photos from the Stevens GC Showcase. Look in my gallery for larger images: