FIFTH COLUMN

Continuing with Sampson's Bank.  Some strange families in here.

• 1.       Project Soane (PS) is more than 5 years old
• 2.       The geometry is complex (Corinthian capitals, bulls head motifs)
• 3.       It’s a large group of buildings
• 4.       The reference material is full of gaps and difficult to interpret

So many of the families are placeholders, first attempts, quick sketches. I was feeling my way, improvising and taking shortcuts. Often there was little to be gained by trying to make them parametric, every chance they would break on flexing.

The Sampson’s Bank model has inherited families of different ages.  Usually I can’t remember what I did, so if they need to be updated I come face to face with a past version of myself.  I have to work with old and clunky families that predate my current modular systems. Most likely those systems would not exist, but for the "Project Soane Experience".

 But let's start with some new “half-round” columns for the entrance façade on Threadneedle Street.  These were removed by Soane around 1820, so they don’t feature in the PS Main Model.

 

Four columns, same basic design, two against a flat wall, two wrapping the corner.  I have my collection of classical columns, Planting category so they scale, and modular so they mix & match.  Base, Shaft & Capital.  Put these three elements together in whatever combination you need.  Economy of effort.

So I homed in on Ionic type 1, round, smooth, no pedestal.  40-Ionic-01-X-Smooth-RD.rfa  The X stands for “no base”  The types “full”, “deep”, “half”, “shallow” are built in to all these families by changing the depth of a void cut.  Actually there are void extrusions in each of the three sub-components that flex together to achieve the results.  Finally I have an instance parameter to convert to a “corner” (Yes/No tickbox) That works on the width of the void extrusion.

 

When I put this family in place and adjusted the height to match the top two stories, I realised that I had chosen the wrong one.  Easily fixed.  I renamed the family in the project browser, changing X to B.  Then loaded In the other family and let it over-ride.  The complex geometry of the Ionic Capital shrinks very slightly so that the total height remains the same.  The base was a bit too high so I adjusted this in family editor, bringing the shaft and capital down to suit.  Reload and the geometry enlarges very slightly to keep the overall height the same, as set in the hardwired type parameter.  The wonders of the “Planting Category Scaling Hack”

Looking at this in 3d I realised that the entablature moulding (an in place sweep above the columns) need to come forward a bit at the front and move in slightly at the sides.  Capitals always project beyond the beams they carry, but the proportions matter, and alignments should be consistent throughout.  There is a slight problem with the string course below also, but I didn’t fuss with that just now.  Very minor and lots of more pressing issues to tackle.  Actually, if you look carefully you will see that the corner of the wall is pushing through the shaft of the column and the window is not quite centred between the columns.

Classical architecture is a wondrous system but very demanding.  I enjoy the discipline, attention to detail, deliberate proportions.

 

At the back of this block, facing the internal courtyard, the façade was not modified by Soane.  The ground floor arches were glazed, probably by Taylor, but otherwise the elevation in the PS Main Model remains as designed by Sampson, so I was able to copy-paste this virtually intact.  Here the columns are square and the families used predate my modular system.  I may replace these eventually, but it’s not urgent.

Interesting to open this up.  An extrusion and a couple of sweeps, placed directly in a wall-hosted template.  The volutes are two cylindrical extrusions placed in a nested family because they are at 45 degrees and they need to be locked back to the wall face.  I’m sure I knocked this family up one afternoon quickly, probably with only a couple of old photos for reference.  It is possible to achieve a passable placeholder for the classical orders using simple shapes.

 

In the Pay Hall we also have engaged columns of the Ionic Order, but this time they have full-blown plinths rather than a simple square base.  This one is quite interesting when you open up the family.  It’s derived from my modular system, but with a twist in the tail.  It’s a wall hosted template with a nested family.  The nested family contains a “free form element” That means I chose the family I wanted, sized it to the room, exported to acis.sat (solid CAD) then brought that back into a family template and exploded it.  At the time I did it this resulted in an object with lots of shape handles that will take a material parameter.  That behaviour changed a couple of releases ago. 

Why did I do this?  I must have been concerned about the levels of nesting.  The capital has a couple of nested components.  This is then nested into a family called “inner” which itself gets nested into the column as found in my collection.  Two levels of planting family (double nested planting) in order to get the scaling behaviour.  To make this wall hosted would mean yet another level of nesting which starts to push the file size up and can slow things down quite a bit.  That would have been my reasoning at the time.

 

 

Getting back to the 4 new columns. To fit on the ledge available, I had to make “ a small half”.  This changes the proportions a bit, and the shafts of the corner columns will look slightly wider than the others.  I think I’ve got it about right, but I will have to look more carefully at real-life examples.

I will have to work on the flat pilasters.  Not so much concerned about the simplicity of the capitals as the need for a corner version. I’m not sure how this was how Sampson built it, conflicting evidence and Taylor seems to have built scrolls up against those corners later on.  I think corner pilasters is the neatest solution for our study model.  I’m also going to express the chimney breasts on that end elevation to give the cornice mouldings something to stop against.