TAYLOR MADE

 

Hello 2021.  Catching up on work I did in mid-December.  Starting with a quote from my “LIVE” LinkedIn posts at the time.

"Assembling reference material in preparation for a model of Taylor's wall. Only need to tackle one half, given the symmetry of the two wings. Looking forward to a productive weekend on the ..." 

Bank of England / BIM360 / way-we-build # # #

 

Taylor built two new wings, one to the East and later on its symmetrical twin, creating a grand Palace front facing Threadneedle Street and spanning the entire city block from Princes St to Bartholomew Way.  Quite a stroke of luck, (by the way) that Sampson’s Bank was so well placed at the centre of a city block. 

The original Bartholomew Way was not at right angles to Threadneedle Street, but Taylor squared the corner up.  As a result widens considerably from South to North even today.  The SE extension came first, with four Transfer Offices to deal with the rapidly expanding market in War-loan shares issued by the Bank.

I need a column.  Start with the closest standard item from my modular library. This is a double-nested planting category RFA to allow scaling.  Open it in family editor, select the nested “INNER” and open that.  Three parts here (Base Shaft Capital)  Don’t mess with the capital unless you have to, rather complex.  The base needs to be plainer and the proportions generally taller and thinner.  So delete the void cuts on the plinth reduce the profiles of the sweeps, stretch the plinth up.  Open the shaft and stretch that up.  Now it will overlap the capital so that needs to be moved up to compensate.  So in 15 or 20 minutes I have the column I need (round fluted Corinthian with a plinth) 

The ability to have half or ¾ columns is built in to my system.  Half columns can wrap the corner with an instance tick-box but that’s not needed in this case.

 

So what about the spacing.  Is it completely regular?  I don’t think so.  Seems to me he had to tighten things up a little around the corner.  I do some studies with dimensioned drafting lines to come up with a spacing that works for me.  This is complicated by the position of the central door.  In reality the East wing was out of square in all kinds of minor ways.  This is not reflected in my model (A) because we don’t have reliable information, and (B) because it would be an absolute pain to force Revit to place walls at fractions of a degree, and (C) because dimensioning would also be a nightmare.

But the knock on effect is that the centre of the doorway on Bartholomew Way is probably a couple of feet further to the North than it should be.  These small discrepancies build up.  So I varied the spacing either side of the door and you don’t really pick it up.  Our eye-brain system is so used to assuming symmetry from minimal cues that our subconscious does the necessary.

 

Another direct quote from my LinkedIn live posts

"First mock up of Taylor's screen walls, framing Sampson's Bank of England like two bookends. It's not going to be fully symmetrical in practice. More on that over the weekend, (which starts tonight :)"

I do like the upper part of this image with most of the context unloaded.  You get a really good feel for how close the bank is to Grocer’s hall, and to the way that Taylor extended Sampson’s composition from a substantial town house, to a grand palace.  Shades of Palladio here, although his side wings were farmhouse barns.  Could there be an interesting metaphor here?  Bank of England as gentleman farmer.  Interestingly enough, several of the Bank’s directors did buy up properties in East Anglia and build themselves country homes to signal their arrival amid the landed classes.  Like the Veneto, this is relatively flat countryside with a network of drainage ditches and canals.

 

The corners are reinforced by doubling up the columns (free-standing columns in front of the normal engaged columns) Above this projection, a triangular pediment.  I roughed this out “in-place” to get the proportions right, then copy-pasted the geometry (while in Edit mode) to an external family template.  This gives me a stable object to place multiple times, plus an easier environment in which to tweak the mouldings and add further detail. 

The large arched recesses alternate with smaller niches which use a revolve for the void cut instead of the extrusion.  Later I will add keystones and other small embellishments to complete the effect.

 

Taylor's wall was removed by Soane, late on in his career, finally imposing his style on the entire perimeter of the Bank. In its turn, Soane's wall was completely rebuilt by Baker but with many similarities.  One of my first puzzles when I started on Project Soane more than 5 years ago was to try to understand the differences between the current screen wall, which I had photographed in some detail, and Soane’s phased work, for which there were a number of drawings, some of them conflicting, and no clear indication of what was actually built.  To complicate the issue, the photographs that exist date from at least 50 years after Soane’s death by which time the parapet had been butchered, railings added, plus who knows what Many layers of dirt and grime to be sure.

I digress.  I have a file called “row planting” that dates back to 2013 or so.  Combining the Planting category hack for scaling with linear arrays to do things like egg & dart or modillions, but also balustrades.  Do I dipped into this to create a wall-hosted family with variable length panels.  Another quick fix with unlimited future potential.  Modular once more, in that you can swap out different balusters at will, scale up the height as needed, vary the spacing.  By accident I had the link for Soane’s entrance block loaded on top of Sampson’s version.  Makes for an interesting comparison.  This building has changed so many times over the years.  Fascinating story.  I’ve been learning something new almost every weekend for more than 5 years now.

Linked In again

“Progress on Taylor's screen wall. Wall-hosted balustrade with parameter driven lengths/number of balusters. Smaller niches to alternate with the large arched recesses. By happy accident, Soane's remodeling of the entrance block superimposed (in blue) over Sampson's original.”

 

 

 

OK, so I had two L-shaped screen walls to contain Taylor’s two wings along Threadneedle Street, which was fine for a first order of approximation.  But in reality the return leg on the West side needed to be slightly longer than the East side along Bartholomew Way. 

 

 

Also, while the first extension called for a separate Entrance to the Transfer Halls (to help separate the speculative trading activities from the sober atmosphere of the Pay Hall and the Bank of England proper) The Garden Court needed to be a more secluded zone, similar to the private garden that the Director’s Parlours had overlooked when they rented the Grocer’s Hall.

I separated out the return legs, and ultimately had three links.  Two instances of the front portion (A).  One on the East, then a mirrored copy on the West.  The East wall with its central doorway becomes a separate linked file (B).  A modified copy of this becomes the West side, down Princes Street (C).  It seems that Taylor gave this wall a simpler treatment, Princes Street being more of a backwater perhaps, but mainly because this is not an entrance façade.

 

So I now have the exterior of the Bank quite well developed, as it was when Soane arrived on the scene.  We already had this area as it was when he retired as part of the work I did for the Project Soane competition (and beyond).  The next big “missing piece” will be the Transfer Halls, as built by Taylor.  These can then swap out with the Soane versions of those spaces as we continue to build up our timeline. 

The next post will be about the timeline itself. i.e further development of the schematic model I have been using to understand the way the building evolved, which is quite complex.  But for now let’s just enjoy the main frontage as created by the first two architects (Sampson & Taylor) over a 50 year period

 

WILL IT SCALE?

 

Blog posts from early 2013

This was an exciting period for me.  I visited New Zealand for Revit Technology Conference, to stay with my sister in Auckland and to see something of that unique country.  Alfredo Medina came up to me at the RTC social, introducing himself and sparking a lifelong friendship.  I sat in on a couple of Marcello sessions, heckling him on the difference between Doric & Tuscan, but feeling totally inspired and motivated.  His scalable Tuscan column (based on a spline) got me going.  I was aware of basic spline behaviour (two ways of stretching the end point by using the TAB key) but I had never thought of using it to scale a profile, or a revolve sketch.  This was rather early in my journey into classical architecture and long before Project Soane took a hold on my life.

I stand by my conclusion at the time.  You can do classical architecture well, and you can do it REALLY BADLY.  Take the time to study and learn.  It is a very deep well of tradition.  If you are not to put in the hard yards, just leave it alone. 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/spline-sailing.html

The glass onion arose from a challenge that cropped up at work.  It’s a good example of using “pick 3d edge” to create complex curves using the traditional family editor.  Probably I should go back to this and see if I can make it more fully parametric.  The last part is also interesting.  Using the rectangular rig to make parametric domes … a family of onion species with different proportions.  I think I should revisit this whole area.  

St Basil’s cathedral, Moscow … anyone?

 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/making-glass-onions.html

 

And back to the Tuscan Column theme.  This is not my current approach to capturing the fundamental variety that is available using the Classical language, but it was an important step along that road. 

I really must get back to my column collection, and get it into shape for sharing, at least with a limited audience.  The whole range of Classical elements within Revit should be an established open source project.  Paul Aubin’s book was a huge contribution of course, but I think we could do a better job of extending this, developing robust content and sharing it widely.

 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/tuscan-rig.html

 

 

I think “Flat People” are still useful.  Photoreal is great … but not always.  Sometimes you want a more stylised, line-art approach to the graphic presentation of an idea.  Early concept design for example.  You might not want to mislead the client into thinking your design ideas are more fully developed than they actually are. 

This is my second post on the topic and I had a couple of people share their collections, so I created some more, as I had promised. 

“One thing that experienced users with a public presence can do is to create better content and make it freely available.”  Here, here! I’m still in favour of that.

And another quote from the end.  I’ve been saying this for a long time now.

“we should also strive to treat Revit like a pencil.  Just pick it up, let it become one with your hand, eye & brain, thinking about the vision you are trying to capture.  Let the tools become transparent.  Create.”

 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/more-pancake-people.html

 

This is another “revisit”.  Spiky geometry that is easier to make in Sketchup than in Revit BUT tends to lose it’s ability to translate into a solid.  Mesh objects won’t support the “mass floors” feature which is so useful in Revit based early design.  I haven’t used Formit for some time, so I’m not sure if the conversion is more predictable or easier to handle using that route.  Another thing to get back to.

Maybe most people would use Dynamo and direct shape geometry these days.  Will have to talk to Daniel about that.

 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/spikey-stuff.html

 

 

It seems like almost every post from this time-frame is something I want to explore further.  This is a variation of the rectangular grid.  This time a circular rig with radial spokes.  There is an exchange with Paul Aubin in the comments.  He has a very elegant method for modelling volutes in his book.  Currently my volutes are very abstracted and low-res.  Perhaps I could combine this rig with Paul’s approach to create a parametric volute generator.  Once again, maybe dynamo would do a better job.

 

https://grevity.blogspot.com/2013/06/spiral-rigging.html

 

STAND IN LINE

 People are impressed by our model of the ceiling at St Anne’s Limehouse, but actually it’s a highly simplified abstraction of reality.  There is something about our system of perception that picks up simple cues and links them to memory traces, to “see” the complexity of life “in our mind’s eye”.

In many ways that is the true challenge of BIM. Come to think of it, that has been the challenge of drawing “for ever”.  What level of simplification is appropriate in the current situation?  The process we are following in our historical studies with BIM involves mapping out the building as quickly and simply as possible, then gradually adding layers of detail as we search to understand : what? why? how?

So this post is about the modillions (similar to Dentils, but scrolls rather than boxes)  Why are these “rows of teeth” so effective at articulating the junctions between horizontal and vertical surfaces? One answer is that they are memories of the rafter ends which remind us of the support system required to hold up any ceiling or roof. 

Let’s get down to the Revit stuff.  There is a family template called “line-based” which allows you to create arrays with two clicks.  Those two clicks define the ends of a line, and nested components can be arrayed along this line based on rules that you define.  In this case I decided to keep it very simple.  We have a nested element with a fixed size, and a parameter that sets the spacing, which I named “Module”.  (Model, Module, Modulus … isn’t language interesting)  There is a little equality trick here that I used to space the first element half a module away from the end point.  That sleight of hand means that “Length/Module” = “No of elements”.  Basically you divide the line into a number of spaces, and place an element at the centre of each space.

The trick involves defining a centre line between two parallel planes, then adding a third plane off to one side and “equalizing” that (so you end up with three halves!)  It’s something I discovered accidentally a while ago.

So it’s a very simple version of the line-based array, with just one variable called “Module”.  I made that a type parameter, you can name the types according to the different spacings.  With just two types, one 5% smaller than the other, I was able to fit the modillions to all the available lengths while equalizing the spaces at the corners (more or less)

This is called “balancing” in the trade: making small adjustments to the spacing so that the corners look “right”.

About 18 months ago (before Covid, and just before Notre Dame caught fire) I was exploring classical ornament (for the umpteenth time)  In this case I was focusing on using Revit’s simple approach to solid geometry to capture archetypal forms like “egg & dart”.  These are arrays, like the modillions, but there are no empty spaces. 

The amazing thing about systems like “classical ornament” or “the blues” is the infinite variety you can extract from what seems at first to be a very rigid set of rules.  There is something about these archetypal forms.  No matter how many times you “revisit” them, you can always find something new. 

So back in April 2019 I came up with three versions of “egg & dart”.  Then I went on to devise three variations on the “leave” theme.

As an aside, “leaf” “egg” “dart” … three elements to represent the vegetable & animal kingdoms, plus a man-made object.  Also that man-made tool is mineral based, and descended from the stone hand-axe that symbolizes our discovery of “technology”.

Going back another 4 years to some of my earliest attempts to create classical ornament, there was a set of insights that I called “row planting”.  As usual that is a play on words.  I had been interacting with other Revit bloggers, and between us we came up with various uses for “the planting hack”.  It’s a way of scaling up Revit geometry globally, something that is not available in other family categories. 

You put a “Planting” family inside a “Planting” family and the result will scale automatically based on the hardwired “Height” parameter.  I call it the “double nested” planting hack, because it relies in nesting Planting inside Planting.  In 2013 I applied this to various types of arrays: line-based families, railings and curtain walls.

That was a really fun period of experimentation.

For some reason, the acanthus leaf has become one of the most fertile sources of invention in classical architecture (and even in the Gothic, if you look carefully)  Revit geometry is far too simple to capture the 3 dimensional fluidity of this genre.  Or it would be, if not for the way our “mind’s eye” works. 

Picasso was very adept at distilling the essence of form.  He could capture a bull’s head or a female nude with half a dozen strokes of the paint brush in a matter of seconds.  There are some fascinating video clips of him painting on glass, filmed from the other side of the glass.

Maybe we can do something like this with the Revit solid geometry tools to capture the fluidity of acanthus.  I was inspired to have another go at this a couple of nights ago

There are three parallel sideways extrusions: solids.  Two of these are cut by void extrusions which run vertically.  Using the “Cut” and “Uncut” commands we can control which void cuts which solid.  Simple stuff, but remarkably effective.  Why? I guess it’s the “minds eye” metaphor getting busy again.

I went back to the 2013 work (which has evolved a bit in the intervening years) and double-nested this family into a line-based family. Because of the planting-hack scaling behaviour, you can create types based on the “module” parameter.  Now you have this amazing object which scales from a small carved detail on the edge of a wooden bookshelf, to a much bigger cast plaster enrichment, to an absolutely huge carved-stone external cornice.

The result of all this effort was an upgrade to work from different eras of my Revit blogging life, unified and standardised into 6 different versions of egg&dart plus 6 different versions of foliage/acanthus/leaf& dart.

This is now a system that can be expanded indefinitely with minimal effort.  You can take any Revit family (almost), change the category to “Planting”, rename it as “Inner” load it in at the bottom level of the nested stack.  Then you just have to adjust one scaling parameter “F” that compensates for the “Height to Width” proportions, so that the items in the array just touch each other (instead of overlapping or leaving gaps)

I did this 12 times in a couple of hours to create the library of classical enrichments shown below.

There is another little trick in there.  You can lock the “F” parameter buy typing a value into the formula field.  This will automatically control all the types, which is what you want.  I will also prevent people from messing with this parameter from within the project environment.  The only parameters you need to set in the project are “Module” and  “Stuff” (material).  You can use these to create as many types as you might need.

The other thing to mention is “standard naming conventions”.

At the bottom level, the planting family is always called “Inner”.  That way you can load a new family and it will automatically replace whatever was there before and maintain any linking (Material).  Next level up is always called “Module” (but you don’t really need to worry about this one.)

Material parameters are always called “Stuff”.  That’s just my own convention, based on choosing something simple and easy to remember.  These things are always made of a single material (I will cross the next bridge when I get to it)

The formula (H = Module*F) is used to control the hardwired “Height” parameter in the Module (by way of parameter linking) No need to mess with this.  It’s set up now and it works.  All you need to do is substitute a new family at the bottom level (Inner) and adjust F until the array works the way you want it to.

Download one sample family from here.  If you want more you can make your own

OR

Contribute to our work here at “The Way We Build” exploring history with BIM.  We are great believers in sharing, but not so much in encouraging free riders 😊

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJyGkX7fHa2XxUtQ0n_2ji13ViEQl0u5/view?usp=sharing

UP IN ARMS

These explorations took place about 6 weeks ago.  I went down a couple of blind alleys, or perhaps that is the wrong expression.  They were alleys that will almost certainly lead somewhere very interesting, one fine day.  But not today.  First thing you learn as an architecture student.  Don't get seduced by clever ideas.  Address the programme.

First idea was a box rig.  Wasn't quite sure how to use this to best effect, so the arrangement of rungs is a bit arbitrary. Tried hanging some ref lines first to simulate the variations in leg shape and proportions that might be possible.

The actual leg was going to be three instances of a two point adaptive component, nested into a 4 point adaptive.  Thigh, calf & foot.

Loaded into the box rig it seemed to have a lot of potential. Plenty of variation, from humanoid to frog-like.   But how to control the proportions of each segment in a coherent manner ?

I set up separate slenderness & bulge factors for each of the 3 components.  So you can create a named type, say "Frog" and set an appropriate box shape.  Then you tweak the slenderness & bulge factors until it looks right.  So far so good.

Obviously you need a pair of legs.  Link them together with a line representing the pelvis.  3d snapping will attach it to the "hip joints".  The next part is inspired by Marcello's famous hydraulic lifting family.  Host a circle on a point and a line from the centre to the circumference can be driven by an angle parameter.  Very stable.

So I've got a spine with a variable angle.  Easy enough to mount shoulders and neck on the end.

The neck angle & length (radius) follows the same principles as the spine. Parameters mounting up here.

By the time I add a couple more leg families to act as arms it's all getting a bit too complicated.  Angles coming off other angles, bulge factors coming out of my ears, and to top it all, they all look a bit insectified.  Not sure this is heading in the right direction.  Getting rather confusing for the end user.

Also I have the feeling that I need some kind of universal joint.  Isn't that what happens at the shoulder ?  More or less ?  I got an idea in my head about 2 semicircles at right angles.  One rides on the other, and the arm rides on that. If you can keep that assembly vertical you don't have to worry about compound angles any more.  Just one parameter for up/down angle and another for back/front.

That worked pretty well, but then I got the itch to play with vanilla again.  How far could I get with trying to do this kind of thing with ref lines in a standard Generic Model template ?

This turned out to be quite a revelation.  We all know that straight ref lines in vanilla are basically the same as the ones in Conceptual Massing.  They have planes at right angles running all the way down, and two more at right angles again closing off the ends.  You can surely host ref lines on the planes of other ref lines.

So the same concept of "up-down" & "back front" angles for the upper arm can be achieved using vanilla by hosting a ref line on the plane of another ref line (both locked to the same shoulder point)

I used a rectangular extrusions to represent the shoulder blades.  These remain vertical of course. You have angle up and angle back from the shoulder and an angle for the elbow joint.  Forearm ratio above 1 makes it bigger than the upper arm.  Below 1 has the reverse effect.  "Scale by forearm" sets the length of the forearm and is intended as a basic module for scaling purposes.  For example, "slenderness" is used to calculate the radius of the sweep.

How is this going to fit into a body plan ?  I felt the need for a diagram to guide me.  And what better drafting software than revit itself ?  The legs "grow" upwards from the ground, controlled by a "Pelvis Height" parameter.  The trunk (torso) needs to move up and down with the pelvis and swivel between almost horizontal and almost vertical.

Note how I naturally switch into orthographic mode to draw these abstractions that will guide me in the building process.  The power of orthographic is awesome, and one of the fundamental reasons why the BIM approach to modelling wins out over Max or Sketchup (for example) when you want to design something that will be manufactured or constructed by a third party.

My first attempt at building this tetrapod uses the universal egg as torso.  And it looks like a promising approach at this stage. Reptile, primate, hoofed mammal.

Then I experimented with a revolve for the torso, hosted on a rotating ref line.  I think this was my first time to use trig functions in Revit formulae to calculate the length and angle of a hypoteneuse.  Nice to know that I still remember this stuff after 45 years of neglect :-)

So I can get within say 1 degree of horizontal or vertical using the Length & Height parameters for the Torso.  Not quite the total freedom of the points riding on circles.  But this is good old fashioned, stable, vanilla.  Let's continue

This is a snapshot of my vanilla experiments so far.  Arms on their own.  Loosely assembled tetrapods, and tetrapods with rotating torsos.  All headless at this stage.  (and no hands, feedm, hooves, claws)

So I add a basic "Bird" (or Bat) body plan.  Stretching out the arms sideways.  And I bring in some heads and place them roughly where I want them, within the project environment.  I think this is about the right level of abstraction.

all very clever, but I couldn't help feeling that the original tetrapod made up of box rigs was rather simpler, potentially much more user friendly.

Another thing worries me.  The legs and arms use a rather different approach.  They are not true serial homologues of each other.  This is rather un-biological.  Basically all appendages are descended from a common root.  So I make the executive decision at this point to flip back into "Point World" and the original conception of box rigs.

One thing I did get out of the vanilla detour.  Keep the limbs cylindrical.  It's a more appropriate abstraction.  All those cigar shapes are too distracting.  Cylinders are much more neutral.  Allow the variation in size & proportions come to the fore.

So ... Generic Model Adaptive.  Set up ref planes.  Make two boxes with a gap between.  Parameters to control the lengths of the 3 sides, plus one more for the gap.

erect ladders using 3d snapping.  Hang sweeps on these to represent limbs.  The knee angle can be varied and/or reversed to form an elbow by varying the position of a point along a line (Normalised Curve Parameter)

This family is a generic "pair of limbs"  Nest 2 of these within another family which contains another Box Rig to control the torso.  The box for the arms is controlled by the same "pelvis height" parameter as the legs.  So a horse or a dog will stand on all fours (almost).  The offset from ground for arms is rigged up to equal the torso height (by a slightly devious method, hence the "xxx" label)

I will be uploading the families next week so you can figure this out if you feel the need. Basically both pairs of limbs grow upwards.  The legs are hosted on the base level, the arms are hosted on the base of a box.  This base of the box is "xxx" above the pelvis

At this stage the foot/hand/paw is included in the sweep.  Just the fingers are missing.  Later on I changed that.  The whole thing flexes quite nicely.  The torso is lofted from 3 circles (later 3 ellipses)  Simple enough, but you can control the amount of the bulge and whether it's up towards the shoulders or down in the beer belly.

You can also play around with ankle and toe positions.  I already mentioned the knee/elbow switch.  So this post ends with a snapshot of 4 abstracted body plans.  Have I found the right balance between variability and user friendliness ?  I think so.  The most expressive part should be the heads and hands. for primates at least.  So keep the rest simple.