I’m going to go, so I might see you there.

Here’s their blub:

Over the years we have done work with sensing and real-time information whether within the office or in the urban environment. The work is not only technical, we have been investigating design and cognition as well as patterns of behaviour and persuasion especially around communication, sustainaibility and resource use.

This November we are offering a workshop at the Pause Digital Festival in Melbourne with Francesco Anselmo from our London Lighting team. Francesco has been doing some fascinating work with proximity sensing networks and has run workshops in London and at this year’s SmartGeometry conference in New York.

This workshop will provide an overview of location-based services and tracking systems. Francesco has been working on wearable tags and we will be thinking and testing how people inhabit and interact simultaneously in digital and physical space.

We will be using RFID (radio frequency identification), NFC (near field communication) standards, wi-fi and bluetooth hacking as well as sniffing with Arduino. Participants will be creating a building-wide proximity sensing network with Synapse RF100 and Processing.

So if you are a designer, hacker, tinkerer, enthusiast or just plain interested you are welcome to join in and get involved.

The workshop will be run with Aaron Tan from the University of Melbourne whom we met when co-sponsored the NASA Space Apps Challenge this year. Aaron worked on our Activity Sensing challenge.

Workshop details:

When
Saturday, November 10, 2012 – 6:00 PM – 7:30PM
Sunday, November 11, 2012 – 9:00 AM – 6:00PM

Where
215 Spring Street Melbourne

Register

http://mappingpeopleinspace.eventbrite.com/#

See the brochure here

DEVS abbreviating Discrete Event System Specification is a modular and hierarchical formalism for modeling and analyzing general systems that can be discrete event systems which might be described by state transition tables, and continuous state systems which might be described by differential equations, and hybrid continuous state and discrete event systems.

from wikipedia.

What this really means is that it isn’t like Logo or dungeons and dragons where things happen in turns, but more that it works continuously, and then events are triggered by a criteria being met in a continuous time space. This is a bit odd to think like this, especially as a lot of us have cut our teeth on simpler simulation formalisms like Logo where everyone makes their mind up about what they are going to do, and then does it.

This confusion is exactly why this session came about. Instead of us sitting in a confused way in our personal bubbles, we can come to chip away at the confusion together.

BVN has offered to host us, so we’ll be pretty close to the Hilton cafe (which is actually surprisingly good!) and we’ll have a comfortable, bit table to sit at.

To keep things tight, I’ve made an eventbrite event for it, so just click this button and get one of the 15 tickets.

I think that it’s going to be exciting, this is the future of how we design, so lets get into it!

ALGORITHMIC DESIGN //////////////////

Introduction to Python for Rhino
Saturday, June 23 – Sunday, June 24

With the upcoming release of Rhino 5.0, we now have access to using the Python programming language within Rhino. Python is a modular, object-oriented programming language with the potential to move beyond scripting into developing custom-written software for architectural design and development. It is cross-platform and software independent.

Through Rhino and Python we will focus on algorithmic design techniques for the generation and analysis of architectural organisations of space.

Topics

Computer Programming
Introduction to scripting | Examples | Coding in Rhino

Computational Geometry
Points | Vectors | Curves | Surfaces | Meshes

Algorithmic Structure
Statements | Sequences | Conditionals | Loops

Python Syntax
Numbers | Strings | Lists | Dictionaries

Script Organisation
Flow control | Repetition | Functions | Recursion

Architectural Applications
Automation | Rationalisation | Generative Design

PARAMETRIC DESIGN //////////////////

Introduction to Grasshopper
Saturday, June 30 – Sunday, July 1

The visual programming interface, Grasshopper, has extended Rhino into a powerful parametric design tool. It enables architects and designers the ability to translate design thinking into a parametric logic that maintains associative links between geometry. It is an extremely fast and intuitive way of creating flexible and generative models. The Parametric Design workshop will be an introduction to parametric design using Grasshopper.

Topics

Parametric Design
Introduction | Examples | Strategies

Grasshopper Workflow
Interface | Parameters | Components

Computational Geometry
Points | Vectors | Curves | Surfaces | Meshes

Algorithmic Design
Pseudo code | Algorithmic Structure

Data Structures in Grasshopper
Data Matching | Lists & Culls | Branching & Data Trees

Field Logics
Grid Methods | Attractors | Image Sampling | Surfaces

Data and visual feedback
Geometry Analysis | Colour & Numeric Feedback

Geometry Output
AutoBake & Export | Animation | Naming & Labels

Dates

The workshops will run in intensive mode over Saturday and Sunday in the last two weeks of June.

The Python workshop is run before Grasshopper so that those enrolled in both workshops will be able to create their own custom Grasshopper components using Python.

Details

Instructors: Robert Beson, Gabriele Ulacco, Tony Ho
Software: Evaluation copies of all software will be provided,
Hardware: All participants are required to bring their own laptops.
Training Material: Printed copies of all training materials and scripts will be provided.

Location: The workshops will be run from our studio at Assemblage, 42 Kensington Street, Chippendale.
Workshop Hours: 9am – 6pm

Although a working knowledge or Rhino is helpful, no scripting experience is required.

For more information and to register, please visit: http://ar-ma.net/code/

Sorry for the slow start to the year in Brisbane everyone, I have been a bit preoccupied with my thesis write-up… On the 22nd of May we will be having a CDG session, with presentations given by Scott Beazley, from Project Services, Mathew Vola and Jack Dodgson, from Arup and Cox Rayner Architects, and I am in the process of confirming a third speaker also. This time around we will be holding the session at QUT Gardens Point campus – you can find all the details in the flyer above.

As usual, we will have some drinks and nibbles for you, so if you could please rsvp for catering purposes that would be great. See you all there!

We have two new presenters this time around. Sivam Krish from the Digital Design Academy is flying all the way from Adelaide to talk about his work with making the realm of computational design available to the masses.

Tony Ho from AR-MA will discuss current work on the affective relationship between envelopes and atmospheric interiors. The research involves advances in non-gridded organisational tactics using Python.

We’ll be following the tried and tested model of three speakers, 10 minutes of speaking, to minutes of vigorous discussion each (with no sharp line between the two!).

BVN have, once again, offered their hospitality to host the session in the Sydney Studio, so get there for 6:30, ready to get going at 7:00.

To add this to your calendar, click this -→

AR-MA have an immediate need for the following positions:

Internships – Architecture

Requirements:

• Strong graphic and design talent
• Strong 3D modeling skills in Maya and Rhino
• Strong rendering skills
• Excellent command of Adobe Creative Suite
• Excellent craft and model-making skills
• Training will be provided for Rhino python scripting and grasshopper.

Successful candidates will receive a monthly stipend .

To apply, please email cover letter, CV, and portfolio.

http://ar-ma.net/employment
employment@ar-ma.net

Sydney computational design group is back!

The call for presenters worked, and we’ve got a full dance card for this coming Monday (the 19^th of March).  The three brave chaps presenting will be Eduardo from UFO, James from En Ex G, and Stuart from Arup.

Eduardo will be talking about the hub for sustainable arts and culture (saac) that debuted at this year’s peats ridge festival. They gave a talk about it at the festival, and they’ll be explaining the machine learning and parametric versioning that went into the design.

When asked for a very brief introduction to what he’s going to talk about, James said “In the world of digital architecture where the rendering and the fly-through are king, I find that many of my students and colleagues cannot or do not draw any more. This chat discusses how even at the pointy end of digital design & fabrication the pencil and other methods do more to challenge the digital than purpose built software.”

Stuart Bull was even more terse, he’ll be talking about “Collaboration, coordination, creation, computational innovation….all parts of the delivery of the expansion of Hong Kong International Airport and the Sludge Treatment facility.”

BVN has kindly offered to host us again in their studio, we’ll be doing the 6:30 for 7pm thing as usual.

You can click on this button to add it to your calendar  

We’ve already started putting together the presenters for next time (in about 7 weeks) so if you’d like to show something then just let me know. As always, if you want to show something then are some 5 minute slots open on the night, just bring your presentation on a stick and we’ll fit you in.

We’re looking for people to present at the upcoming compDesGrp sessions in Sydney. We need stuff that is interesting, it doesn’t need to be polished, finished or ground breaking, the fact that you are DOING stuff it the really exciting part!
We’ve got no dates just yet, but we’d like to sign up a few sessions worth of speakers to get a bit of momentum going.
To sign up, or sign someone else up, make a comment here, or email me.

Architect and Mathematician: Designing the Dialogue: Part 1 from Bianca Toth on Vimeo.

Architect and Mathematician: Designing the Dialogue: Part 2 from Bianca Toth on Vimeo.

It’s been a little while coming, but it is time again for another Brisbane session! To finish of the year we will be having a guest presentation given by Hugh Whithead, Director of the Specialist Modelling Group at Foster + Partners, and Kristoffer Josefsson, a mathematician whose interest lies in the intersection of mathematics and architecture in form-finding.

This presentation will be held at QUT Gardens Point Campus, and drinks and nibbles would be provided, so if you could please rsvp that would be great. See you all there!