Month: February 2020

Rhino is a 3D modeling and computer-aided design (CAD) software used by many in architecture. It has a very user-friendly interface and it has many applications for students, which makes it a fan-favorite for architecture students.

My first experience with Rhino was in the middle of my first semester. For building real life models, it is much more efficient and precise to use a laser cutter. This is where you insert the material, upload a design, and a laser cuts through your material and makes the pieces that you want. It’s super helpful, and I wanted to use the laser cutter but the only problem was I needed some way to digitally draw my designs. So, I learned how to use Rhino. It took a while, but I slowly learned it, and only stayed in the world of 2D, never getting into the 3D stuff.

Then I had a class this semester, my second semester Visual Communications class. Last semester was hand-drafting, this semester is all digital. This semester I’ve learned a lot so far in the Rhino world. I’m actually good at 3D modeling designs now, and I’ve also learned many new commands and tools that I didn’t before. As the class goes on I keep learning more and more that I can use to get better and quicker at 3D modeling.

Rhino has several applications. As I mentioned before, it’s very useful for laser cutting. Another thing it has use for, although not the best, is drafting floor plans. It does have object snaps, and user input for distances, so for drafting it does work well, but AutoCAD might still have the edge over Rhino for 2D drafting. The most important application of Rhino is taking a plan of your building, and then extruding it (making it 3D) to turn a 2D plan into a 3D model. This is where Rhino is so important in Architecture.

I’ve made many things so far. We’ve done some stuff in 2D, but in 3D we’ve made some cool designs.The Eiffel Tower was a cool one. It also taught me some very valuable tools in 3D modeling. There’s a whole group of tools that go under the category ‘boolean‘. They’re all very helpful for modeling. An example is boolean union where it brings two 3D objects together, or boolean intersection, which takes two 3D objects and only keeps the parts that intersect with one another, deleting the rest. That tool was very helpful for the Eiffel Tower.

At first, I was skeptical about 3D modeling. I was worried and felt overwhelmed with all there is to learn, with all the commands and tools. But, I’ve already grown very fond of the capabilities that I have now obtained now that I’ve entered this world and I look forward to continuing on.

Recently in Architecture, we’ve been studying prefabricated Architecture. This is when the supplies and building materials are first made (normally in factories), then shipped to the construction site where they are assembled into the building.

We were looking at a specific part of these buildings however. My professor chose buildings that all have very interesting types of joints used in the construction of these buildings.

The building I was assigned was the Montreal Biosphere. It was designed by American architect Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller for the Expo 67 in Montreal. The building is a large geodesic dome built around a little museum designed to display American culture. In this blog, we’ll discuss the architect, the building, the concept behind a geodesic dome and the joint used in this building.

Let’s start off with the architect. He had a rather tough road to success. Buckminster Fuller was expelled from Harvard twice, once for partying, and the second time for having “bad ideas”. That wasn’t it. When he was 32, he hit a serious road block. 5 years prior, his daughter died at the age of 4. Now, he just lost his job as president of a company who specialized in structures. On top of that him and his wife just had a newborn baby. They had no way to pay their bills and we’re going into debt. He was also becoming a serious drinker. One night, on his usual walk around Chicago where they lived, he walked next to Lake Michigan, and considered drowning himself. He thought his family would be better off with the insurance money. But instead a voice told him he can’t. It told him that he has no right to kill himself. And that if he were to use the skills that he has for the right reasons, then he will find out that he has a purpose on this planet. From that day on he was one of the great pioneers and scientists looking into the integrity of certain structures, trying to find the most efficient ones.

The building is a unique one to say the least. It has the dome on the outside and then the building on the inside. The geodesic dome is made out of steel, specifically the struts on the dome are made of 3 inch steel tubes. The size and weight of the material diminishes towards the top in an effort to help the building stand. Also, if you look closely, it can be seen that the building actually has two spheres concentric to one another, the inner sphere helps with the structural integrity of the building.

The next thing is some information on geodesic domes. They are very useful for designers and architects because they have the smallest surface area (material usage) for the largest volume (space). It’s cost efficient in that sense. It’s said that a house made of a geodesic dome uses 1/3 the amount of lumber to build compared to a normal house. So the way it works is that a geodesic dome is made of equilateral triangles that transfer the load of the dome throughout the structure. It can have 4, 6, 8, 12, or 20 faces. The Montreal Biosphere is a 20-sided (icosahedron) dome. This may have you thinking, “Well I see so many more!” but it’s technically 20 sides and then a repetition of equilateral triangles in each face to give it a more spherical shape.

The last thing is the joint. The system of jointing in the dome is a hub and strut system. Basically there’s a hub, which is like the center, and then struts run out from them and to other hubs. The hubs on the building are a hexagonal shape with arms that extend out to which the pipes can attach to. The struts are the 3 inch steel tubes that I mentioned before. There is little documentation so it required just photographs, mostly poor ones, and diagrams/logic to map out how the joint works and what it looks like.