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www.utdt.edu/arquitectura

The Impact of Grasshopper on Contemporary Architecture

Universidad Torcuato di Tella
Escuela de Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos
Seminario de la Maestría en Historia
y Cultura de la Arquitectura y la Ciudad
Ways of Making
Professor: Mario Carpo
Students: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli

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Hypothesis
Algorithmic-aided design (AAD) is central in the contemporary paradigm of Architecture. It is not based on
the design of the form itself, but in the design of the code which results in the form of the project. There
are few available software that are useful for this type of AAD, and their logics tend to generate formulas
which skew the way architecture is being designed and looked at nowadays. This phenomenon is analogous
to what took place in the ‘90s with the abuse of the spline via CAD software1, defining the visual style of
architecture at the end of the century.

Grasshopper 3D is the AAD software we will focus on in this essay. It is a visual programming language de-
veloped by David Rutten, from the company Robert McNeel, that runs within the widely used modelling
software Rhinoceros 3D CAD. It offers the possibility to script the construction of a model in an intuitive
interface that leaves behind the need to learn any sort of syntax. Since its launch in 2007, the number of
active users keeps growing and its effects on the designs that are being focused by architectural media are
far reaching. This essay will go through some formulas that have made it into the common practice of the
contemporary architectural field.

The Technical Aspect

Apart from Grasshopper, there are few programs that allow algorithmic-aided design: Autocad AutoLISP;
Maya - MEL; 3dMax - MAXScript; Sketchup - Ruby; Rhino - RhinoScript2. We chose Grasshopper because it
developed a visual language where algorithms are constructed by connecting components (encapsulated
code) with wires rather than having to write each line of code (script). This attribute of being able to manipu-
late algorithms into components facilitates the use of complex pieces of code without having any previous
knowledge in the field. We’ll go through the basic logic behind the interface and the easiness with which
certain results can be achieved.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli.

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00. interface

In Grasshopper, every definition is developed on a canvas where components are placed freely and can be
found on the upper toolbar.

input output

Every component has a set of inputs (what data is required to do said operation) and a set of outputs
(what data the component produces to continue the chain).

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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Information is transformed from a component to the next by connecting their outputs and inputs through
wires.

On every step of the chain, information is transformed in a specific way depending on the type of opera-
tion that was chosen.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen:
Grasshopper Viewport

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At any point in the chain, the resulting geometry can be “baked” so as to bring it into the Rhino
environment and work with it in the traditional manner from that point forward.

01. attractor points

The first and probably most used trick in GH3 is the attractor point; this language’s “hello world”, one may
suggest. It is fairly simple to measure a distance from any geometry to a point (or a point projected onto
any object) and use this measurement to define some other geometry.

Let there be an array of points in the Y direction.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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By defining an X vector with which to move this set of points into a new array we draw a grid.

We can measure the distance from every point in the grid to an arbitrary point.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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Purpusefully multiplying that value by a coefficient to set the radius of a circle at each point,

or, with the very convenient component “move away from”, make the arbitrary point work like a magnet
to which the rest of the points move away from.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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This gives the effect of a “field”, where every particle reacts in a continuous manner from an arbitrary focal
point or curve. It shows the capabilities of working with computers because each instance is treated indivi-
dually and therefore every single particle is given a unique value. A lot of difference is produced and so the
result seems elaborate, although few of those particular cases are deliberate.

02. data trees

To handle the complexity of the information that’s being transformed throughout the chain David Rutten
came up with a special kind of “data structure” that maintains the genealogy of any piece of information
that’s created by giving it a special “path”.

path

index

Let there be a set of three curves, originally drawn-out in the CAD interface and brought into Grassho-
pper. The one component that brings in these curves has a plain data structure of only one list with a path
numbered “{0}” that contains three elements each numbered with an index from 0 to 2. Paths can have an
arbitrary amount of numbers of any value, while indices are always counted ordinarily from 0.
EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Examples of attrac-
tor points on architecture, from left to right, from top to bottom: image 00-05 Rhino and Grasshopper Viewport

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By connecting this list to a “divide curve” component each curve is divided into an arbitrary amount of
equal segments and the resulting points are outputted. When a set of curves is divided each set of points
is contained in a different list, each with their own unique path. These paths are related directly to the
curve whom those points correspond, and its number corresponds to that curves index on the previous
data structure

Let there be a single vertical line constructed from each of these points. No new set of information is crea-
ted, therefore the structure stays the same.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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By dividing each of these lines a new set of points is created, and to deal with the growing complexity a
new directory (a new number in the chain of numbers that makes a path) is added to each path. By doing
so we can learn the genealogy of any point through the name of the path that contains it and its index
inside that list. The first directory was created on the first division of the three original curves, and the
second directory was created when we divided the vertical curves; the latter “branch” from the former.

03. relative item

This hierarchical structure helps at relating elements of a model without having to go through a lot of
code, because it’s organization is explicit and many components let the designer make use of said rela-
tionships. We’ll have a look at “relative item”.

{0;+1}

Relative item works with the principle that at any point in the data tree a specific pair can be found by mo-
ving a certain amount of steps on a given directory or the index value of said point. For example, one could
say “every point has to draw a line to the one that’s sitting on the next vertical line”.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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 {+1;0} {+1;+1}

{+1;+2} {+1;0}(+1)

The “next vertical line” would require one to look for the next value in the B directory, so by adding 1 to
the original B value at any point we would create the path where the pair sits. Different offsets (the num-
ber that’s added or subtracted from a particular directory) lead to different patterns.

The braided structure that arises from defining diagonal relations in a grid has become a theme of it’s own
with the invention of the “dia-grid”.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Examples of relative
item in architecture, from left to right, from top to bottom: images 06-11. Rhino and Grasshopper Viewport

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04. box morph
Not only does GH provide for tools to handle complex sets of data but it has also made complex operations
available without the need to understand the math behind them. This is the case, for example, of the “box
morph” component, where the U-V coordinates of a NURBS surface are used to transform an object.

Let there be a set of three curves, originally drawn-out in the CAD interface and brought into Grasshopper.

With the component “loft” one can create a continuous NURBS surface.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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And by dividing the two-dimensional domain that contains the coordinates of this surface one can decide
how many voxels will be created in the U and V directions.

This subdivision of the surface’s domain is used to create the distorted voxels that adapt to the slope and
curvature of the surface (with an arbitrary height, set at 1 by default).

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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Any geometry with its corresponding reference voxel (that can be seen painted green in the picture) can
be inputted and the “box morph” component will do the rest.

This also comes to show the capabilities of the digital era, where every case is individually calculated and
fits perfectly next to it’s neighbours. The sense of continuity throughout and the unique deviations in each
piece (a very similar feel to the attractor points phenomena) make for an intricate whole even though it’s
inner structure is predetermined.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Examples of box
morph in architecture, from left to right and from top to bottom: Images 12-17. Rhino and Grasshopper Viewport

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The Social Aspect
The fact that the design itself is written as a group on components makes the files very small and easy to
share. There are lots of free blogs and platforms on the internet where designers upload the codes they
wrote to make different projects and/or solve specific problems that are common, reducing the amount
of time and effort dedicated to design-making. Virtual platforms organize information (such as photos,
videos, tutorials, files, discussions, and dates of events) in different ways: lists, mosaics, and a combination
of both. In general, on these platforms tutorials explaining how commands work are shared, in addition to
others explaining how to make more efficient definitions by adding plugins4.

There are some examples of pages where sharing files is the main objective:
Parametric Model5 is a technical Wikipedia-like site in which you can edit any item of the library. It has a
list of a certain amount of models for Rhino and GH and users can download them to use or improve them,
making it a collaborative platform.

hydra

Hydra6 is a website made for sharing Grasshopper and Dynamo files, focused on code for environmental
solutions, such as energy balance, SD layout panel functions, radiant heating-cooling systems, among
other issues. There are a lot of codes for Ladybug and Honeybee, which are GH Plugins specialized in solar,
wind and radiation analysis. Each publication includes the file itself, a picture of the code and the kind of
analysis it develops and some of them also show explicative videos. Below the information, people are
able to comment or ask questions about the material to the person who uploaded it.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: screenshots of
hydra’s interface.

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algorithmic design in architecture

The same logic is developed in another blog called “Algorithmic Design in Architecture” 7 where models
are first shown as a mosaic of pictures or gifs of the parametric model being modified by the change in its
variables, and when you click on one of them, a picture of the code plus the file itself and a space for ques-
tions and comments is displayed. Besides having a mosaic design, every page has a “search” bar.

grasshopper forum

The most popular forum is the official site of Grasshopper8, where you can download the software, create
an account and share or download files from the community, ask for help or reply to other users doubts,
download plugins, check the public calendar for international events that include talks, courses, meet and
greets, among others.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: screenshots of
“algorithmic design in architecture” and grasshopper forum interfaces.

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plugins

Plugins9 themselves are a way to improve shared knowledge and collaborative design, as it is not the
project that is being modified, but the components that build its code. Any user can compile their own
components and publish them on any site of their choosing. This plug-ins have all sorts of utilities, whe-
ther it be with the development of ready-mades (components that summarise algorithms that could have
been written through the standard library) or by expanding the capabilities of GH (plug-ins which allow for
iterative algorithms to be written, or special types of files to be integrated, etc.)

Conclusion
Sofware that facilitate the algorithmic-aided design in general, and Grasshopper in particular, are biasing
the way we design and understand contemporary architecture, allowing new types of collaborative design
and generating projects that can be brought to reality thanks to new concepts such as mass customiza-
tion10. In this essay, the impact this has on architecture is centred on two specific aspects: the technical
and the social.

Grasshopper is a hypercomplex tool with which new and unique architecture can be created, allowing
us to experiment almost without limits. However, within its capabilities, we intended to highlight certain
formulas which tend to give away the inner structure of NURBS and GH’s data trees and comes to show
that some of today’s projects settle down with the technical applicabilities and end up choosing certain
strategies that fit the technical rather than the other way around. This is why many of today’s publications
consist of single-surface projects whether these are facades, envelopes or pavilions: they all satisfy the
condition of a constant topology that obeys the two dimensional structure of the U-V coordinates. This
does not mean that the final output is always a continuous surface but rather that the inner-structure that
organizes the projects is practically a deformed two dimensional grid. This phenomena could be compared
to the ’90s “spline fever”: we confuse the application of technical novelty with the application of a cohe-
rent argument that organizes the project. The impact that this tool is having in architecture nowadays is
maximized by the easiness that sharing files, code, images and tutorials implies thanks to certain blogs and
platforms that allow not only to share but to discuss the technical, rather than the architectural itself.

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: screenshots of “food
for rhino” and grasshopper interfaces.

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Footnotes
1
They are also known as NURBS (non-uniform rational b-splines).
2
First, the CAD program - then, the AAD plugin.
3
Short for Grasshopper.
4
A plugin is a software add-on that is installed on a program, to expand its capabilities.
5
https://parametricmodel.com
6
https://hydrashare.github.io
7
http://parametric-design.blogspot.com
8
https://www.grasshopper3d.com
9
Plugins for Grasshopper can be downloaded from https://www.food4rhino.com
10
Concept extracted from the book “The Second Digital Turn”, explicit in the bibliography.

Bibliography
CARPO, Mario, The Second Digital Turn, The MIT Press, London, 2017.
TEDESCHI, Arturo, LOMBARDI, Davide, The Algorithms-aided Design (AAD), 2014.

Images
All Grasshopper, Rhino and Internet platforms interfaces’ screenshots were taken by ourselves.

Image 00: Onmisphere, by Fernando Romero, Joana Gomes, Mauricio Ceballos Pressler, Ana Rita Alves, Adrian Krezlik, Leni
Farenzena, Juan Carlos Ramos, Claudia Santos, Astrid Rovisco Suzano, Susana Hernández, Raúl Soria, Libia Castilla, Liliana Viveros,
Cristian Lera Silva, Adrián Aguilar, Mario Espinoza, Heidi Blais, 2011. Extracted from: http://www.fr-ee.org/project/41/Omnisphere
Image 01: Aqua Tower by Studio Gang, Chicago, 2010. Extracted from: https://studiogang.com/project/aqua-tower
Image 02: K-1299 by Architizer, Beirut. Extracted from: https://architizer.com/projects/k-1299/
Image 03: Hexigloo Pavilion by Tudor Cosmatu, Irina Bogdan, Andrei Raducanu, Rumania. Extracted from: https://www.archdaily.
com/146764/hexigloo-pavilion-tudor-cosmatu-irina-bogdan-andrei-radacanu
Image 04: Design Studio + Workshop by Apical Reform, India, 2016. Extracted from: https://archello.com/project/design-stu-
dio-workshop-apical-reform#stories
Image 05: Eastland Centre, by ACME, Australia, 2017. Extracter from: https://www.archdaily.co/co/895334/centro-de-la-ciudad-
de-eastland-acme

Image 06: A simple Factory Building by Pencil Office, Singapure, 2012. Extracted from: http://penciloffice.com/project/projec-
ta-simple-factory-building/?template=pencil-office
Image 07: The Broad by Diller Scorfidio, Los Angeles, 2015. Extracted from: https://dsrny.com/project/the-broad?index=false&sec-
tion=projects&search=broad&tags=
Image 08: Canton Tower, by Information Based Architecture, China, 2010. Extracted from: https://www.archdaily.com/89849/can-
ton-tower-information-based-architecture
Image 09: Victoria Gate Shopping by Acme, Leeds, 2016. Extracted from: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/10/21/victoria-gate-sho-
pping-centre-acme-architecture-john-lewis-leeds-england-uk/
Image 10: Poly International Plaza by SOM, Beijing. Extracted from: https://www.som.com/projects/poly_international_plaza
Image 11: Phoenix International Media Center by Shao Weiping, Beijing. Extracted from: https://www.arch2o.com/beijing-tv-stu-
dio-wrapped-doughnut-shaped-lattice/

Image 12: DIGFABMTY 1.0, by students from Tecnologico De Monterrey Campus Monterrey, México, 2014. Extracted from: http://
www.evolo.us/parametric-pavilion-in-monterrey-mexico/
Image 13: Ginza Place, by Klein Dytham Architecture + Tasei Design Planners, Architects and Engineers, Japan, 2017. Extracted
from: https://www.archdaily.com/879524/ginza-place-klein-dytham-architecture
Image 14: Raspana Street Library by Yuzdzhan Turgaev, Boyan Simeonov, Ibrim Asanov and Mariya Aleksieva, Bulgaria, 2017.
Image 15: Arboskin Pavilion by students and professors of Stuttgart University’s Institute of Building Structures and Structural De-
sign (ITKE). Extracted from: https://www.arch2o.com/arboskin-pavilion-institute-of-building-structures-and-structural-design-itke/
Image 16: Lina Tower by ONL, Abu Dhabi, 2014. Extracted from: http://www.onl.eu/projects/liwa-tower
Image 17: Bowoos Pavilion by Students of Saarland University, Germany, 2012. Extracted from: http://www.evolo.us/bowoos-bio-
nic-research-pavilion-is-inspired-by-marine-biodiversity/

EAEU. Carrera de Arquitectura. Materia: Seminario. Curso: Ways of Making. Profesor: Mario Carpo. Alumnos: Ian Groisman Marcilla, Diego Laplaza, Ornella Martinelli. Imagen: Rhino and
Grasshopper Viewport

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