This is Going to be Reviting!

By Timothy Shotts

This is going to be a two-part tutorial to create STL (stereo lithography) files for the CNC and 3D printers.  I primarily use Rhino, Sketchup, and Revit for modeling so that’s what I’ll go over here.  I’ve broken it down into two sections – Sketchup to STL, and Revit to STL.  For reference, I will be using Rhino5, Sketchup Pro 2013, and Revit 2013, so YMMV.

Part 1:  Sketchup to .STL

Rhino5 will not open a Sketchup file more recent than V8, so down-save a copy of your model.

1.  Open your Sketchup V8 file in Rhino

Accept the default SKP Import Options

2.  When I import files into Rhino, they come in as millimeters, so I’m going to change the units to inches for the CNC.

In Rhino’s Command line, type “units”

Now my site model is 11,520” x 11,520”.  Great!  Almost done.

3.  Scale to the correct size.

I want my model’s scale to be at 1”=64’, so in Rhino’s command line I’ll type in “Scale”, select all my geometry, set the origin to (0,0,0), and the scale factor will be 1/768  1/768

Now my site model is 15” x 15”, a very manageable size.

4.  Export model as a STL file.

Select all your geometry to export, and type “export” into the command line.

Make sure your Export Options window looks like this.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are now ready to CNC your Sketchup model.

Part 2:  Revit to .STL

1.  Go to the Default 3D View

2.  Export a DXF file

DXF Export window will open and click Next…

Make certain that the file type is a 2010 DXF.  Rhino5 will not open a 2013 file.

3:  Open file in Rhino5

Since my Revit model was in feet and inches, I am going to import my file into Revit using inch units.

Double-check that your model is at the correct scale.

4.  Scale your model for fabrication.

I’m going to 3D print this model at 1:100 scale, or 1/1200

Great!  Now I have a 3D model that is about 4” x 5” and will fit on the Replicator’s platform.

5.  Change units.

The Replicator needs the units to be in millimeters.  You can do this in the Makerbot software, but I prefer to do it beforehand.

In Rhino, type “Units” into the command line, change the Model Units to Millimeters, and choose “Yes” to scale the model.

6.  Export model as a STL file.

Select all your geometry to export, and type “export” into the command line.

Make sure your Export Options window looks like this.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are now ready to 3D print your Revit model.

Life of a Saluki Architecture Grad Student

By John Svast

As I may have mentioned before, I’m not doing a typical “project” thesis for my graduate work here at Southern Illinois University.  I’m doing a written thesis… all words… no pretty pictures…. no models… just my idea, meticulously spread over the page like the peanut butter and jelly I so desperately crave/can afford.  So as the end of the semester begins to loom overhead, I would like to pass on my knowledge to the next chap that is bold and brave enough to venture away from the image driven world of architecture.  To you, I give 10 things I have learned since I decided to take a swim into the written word-o sphere.

1- NOT EVERYONE WILL BE EXCITED ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING

Many moons ago I read a quote from someone that is much more clever and famous then me about talking about what you enjoy.  I don’t remember who the quote is from or the exact wording but I’m going to attempt to give you the gist.  AHEM… here goes…

                “Talking about what you are truly passionate about is kind of like pissing your pants, It is hot to you but not to anyone else”-someone famous

How does this quote apply?  You are no longer creating renders and models that inspire your peers to interact with you anymore.  You are creating pictures with your words, and architectures students are about as famous for taking the time to read something as great white sharks are for eating all their vegetables.  No worries… stay the course.

2- YOU HAD BETTER ENJOY READING

Sweet Corbu’s ghost you better love to read! 

Your new purpose in life is to take in everything thing there is to know about your topic and extrapolate it to good use. 

How is this done? 

Well… unless your great grand Pappy/Mammy was a Pritzker Prize winner that enjoyed bouncing you on their knee when you were a young puppy while they regaled you with bedtime stories of their youth, you will be force to learn this knowledge from a book.

So start reading!

3- TAKE AMAZING NOTES

Since you will be reading roughly one-bajillion books over the course of your thesis, you had better take good notes, unless you like reading books multiple times… because you know… you will have so much time on your hands to do that.

4- BUILD YOUR OUTLINE NOW

The outline is your new building grid… don’t throw it in at the last second in hopes that your thesis argument will stand up on its own.  Start your outline early and let it develop as you learn more about your thesis.

5- DON’T BE DISCOURAGED BY BRICKWALLS

I can’t stress this enough.

I’m not talking about writing brick walls, you are a grad student now, and you have run into an umptiy-dozen amount of writing brick walls by now and hopefully have ways to bust through them.

I’m talking about research brick walls.  On multiple occasions I have been on a research sprint through what I had assumed was a new world that I was creating as my mind unfolded it and then BLAM!  I find out that my thesis has already been done before by some other Grad student at another school.  I’m not going to lie… this always depressed me.  On those nights that I felt as though my original ideas were torn from me I usually drank until I felt better…I don’t recommend this.  Your research is like a good movie script, you will run into ideas that have been done before, this is your opportunity to take those older ideas and “flip” them until they become your own… then keep running with it.

6- PICK A PARTICULAR TIME OF DAY TO WRITE… AND THEN WRITE

I am a morning person.  I can immediately wake up and start joyously whistling along with the birds and dancing as though it was a 1950’s Disney cartoon… this has angered and disgusted every single girlfriend that I have ever had… what have I learned from this?  I have learned that I will die cold and alone because of this… BUT!! I also learned that the best time for me to write is the morning.  Pick the best time for yourself to write… and then write!

7- USE THE WRITING CENTER AT MORRIS LIBRARY

When I was in boot camp, my drill sergeant told my entire flight and myself that we were all unpolished turds and it was his job to polish us.  He then yelled “When I say down you say flush it!  When I say up, you say swoosh!” and then we all did pushups to this odd toilet driven cadence until he got tired.  The writing center at Morris Library is just like this… except without the yelling and pushups.  They take that turd that you call your thesis and polish the hell out of it. 

8- DON’T GET STUCK IN YOUR WORLD BY YOURSELF… TALK TO OTHER PEOPLE.

Reading, writing and research is not a team sport… it is something you drag yourself through kicking and screaming but it does help to have a few onlookers check out your form. 

Don’t lock yourself in a room until it is all over… TALK TO PEOPLE!  Don’t just talk to your chair…  Talk to your friends about this!  Talk to your professors!  Talk to your peers!

9- GIVE YOURSELF AWHILE TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF

When you do talk to others… give yourself some time.  It takes me an hour to go over my entire thesis argument.  When you have read a mountain of books you tend to have a lot to talk about.

10- ENJOY WHAT YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT

You will be in this for the long haul… you better like what you are studying.  If you don’t care about it, who else will?

GOOD LUCK!!

Deadlines Are Past...For Now

Hello Readers,
Just wanted to apologize for the temporary unintentional hiatus I took from the blog for the last five days.  Last week was pretty much the worst one of the semester, and the end of it marks a small break for us as far as deadlines go.  So, I spent a much-needed weekend with the other girls in studio, mostly drinking wine and shopping.  As far as the blog goes, I will continue posting the last round of blogs I received.  Then we have one more submission this Wednesday and those will be the last ones.  There will be new blog posts until May 10th which is our graduation day! After that, I will leave this blog to the next Library Graduate Assistant starting next fall.  Thanks!

Lauren Hale
Blog Contributor

Alternative Building Method: Cob Construction

By Michelle Harris

Gasoline is a limited energy resource. Further consideration of alternative building means is necessary in a industry, specifically construction, fueled by gasoline. Relying on gasoline as an energy source is also part of a vicious cycle that pollutes water. If you are interested in learning more about the issue of fracking for gasoline, Gasland by Josh Fox is an informative documentary. There are many alternative building options to consider. Cob is one of them.

Cob is an ancient building method. It is a natural construction material made from sand, clay, water, and straw. There are often other materials available to add to the cob mixture such as animal dung or fur. The placidity of the material allows sculptural possibilities. Another great thing about cob construction is that is fireproof and inexpensive. An example of a home made of cob is one by Michael Buck.

Michael Buck's current home is traditional construction. He built another home by his garden in his spare time that is used for a woofer, a working tenant. The cob structure is framed from lumber hewn from the trees on Buck's property. The house is 300 square feet and cost 300 dollars to build. Most everything was salvaged and only one power tool was used in the construction. Cob makes financial sense but has some comfort drawbacks.

The comfort issues are tied to the material composition. In technical documents cob is considered an "organic aggregate," where the cob is an insulating. Cob insulates in the winter and cools the residence in the summer. However, cob as a perpetual wet mixture is always drying out. This leaves the structure damp. Without proper lighting there is also an issue of a gloomy interior. In some ways even with the practicality of the environmental economics, a cob house is not much different than a cave interior.

Even though cob construction may not be practical for the Midwest climate or rainy areas there is potential in warmer arid climates. Driving through the southeastern portion of the United States, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona I saw quite a few examples of cob construction. It makes sense that Paul Serilio, the founder of Earthships, which often utilizes cob, is in Taos , New Mexico. For now in the Midwest it’s about making the best of what you have with where you are.

References:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenerliving/10478442/Michael-Bucks-cob-house-Does-the-answer-to-the-housing-crisis-lie-within-a-150-cottage.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513154/Farmer-builds-house-just-150-using-materials-skips--current-tenant-pays-rent-MILK.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_(material)

http://www.barefootbuilder.com/faq.html

Design-Build Lessons

By Isaac Grayson

I have had the opportunity to take part in a design build project for ARC 242. In years past the class has constructed full size wall sections in the courtyard of Quigley Hall. But this year Chad Schwartz and his students are trying something different. This year the project is to overhaul the amphitheater out at Touch of Nature.

                My role in this project is just to help during the construction process, and attempt to foresee problems and help the students solve them. We have several problems pop-up but thankfully they have all been solvable with some field sketching and on site problem solving. I will be the first admit that I do not know everything  that is going on, nor do I know how to solve every problem that arises, but as a group we have been able to accomplish a lot. And I have learned a lot from this experience.

                Getting the opportunity to build, at full scale, is a rare opportunity during school. Often we draw, play on the computer, and build some scaled models. These things help solidify our ideas but they don’t teach like full construction can. For example there are several structures being built along with the amphitheater. The one I have had the most involvement with is the pathway bench. When we were constructing this bench we were referring to drawings produced in class. We quickly learned that the dimensions on the drawing were not sufficient to properly build the bench. Or rather the dimensions were there but to get the numbers needed we had to do a fair amount of fractional inch math, which always has a tendency to lead to errors.

                Probably the most comical dimension string was one that called out bottom of footing to top of beam. It may look fine on the paper but it’s a comical process to see people’s faces realize that you cannot measure from the bottom of footing. Especially now that they are all full of concrete and surrounded by dirt. It’s these kind of lessons that can be rigorously repeated in a classroom setting but they don’t really click until an individual is faced with the situation in real life. Now this group of students will be able to properly dimension to inform the builders of their future projects.

                We are coming up to our third scheduled build day. The goal was to be putting the finishing touches on the structure now. We are nowhere near that. Granted as usual it took a large amount of time to place the footings correctly. But now we are getting framing in place so we should begin to see the designs manifest themselves before our eyes. 

Building Daze

By Randy Thoms

The ridge is 8000 feet into the sky and in relative terms it is a razor's edge, yet the Incas still wanted to build a palace here for some reason.   So during the 15th century a king-warrior named Pachacuti started to layout plans for a royal estate.   As Ken Wright states, one of the many problems to overcome and the biggest, would have been landslides and so stabilizing the slopes was priority one (2009).   As studied the site work and foundations seem to take up 50% to 60% of all work completed at the site over the 90 year build time.   Due to heavy rains and steep slopes this was a necessary evil to spend such an exorbitant amount of time and money.

            Through more investigations the site work and drainage composed of three material choices;  topsoil, sandy gravel and white granite.   This vast system of underground work for drainage was needed to keep Machu Picchu on the hillside otherwise it would not be there today.    This is because the average rainfall in this area is 76 inches and during the wet season mostly which last seven months.   By compassion, that is almost three times as much rain as Chicago sees in a year.   One interesting find to go along with the drainage system was the white granite, which seemed to be the waste ruble of the buildings which sit on top.  So Wright (2009) surmises that the original Inca buildings would have been white and not the Grey weathered stone color we see today.  

            The next would have been the terraces and lots of them.   Over 700 follow gracefully along the topographic elevation lines with curves and straights.   The water is allowed to drain deep below into the ground and safely away from the hillside as not to wash the entire structure down with it into the river below.   They not only serve as foundations for the various building and plazas of the site, but also soil stabilization  for the plant growing fields  for their agricultural needs (Wright 2009) and walking paths along the hillside.  These are the fundamental building blocks for the longevity of Machu Picchu.

            Unfortunately, this sounds all to familiar to one Architecture class on SIU campus and that would be ArC 242 Building Tech I: Wood.  We are building a new stage, amphitheater seating and entrance benches out at the Touch of Nature campus near Giant City State Park.  Nonetheless, weather has not been our best friend out there with all the rain and cold.  The students are in the process of trenching, cutting, digging, draining and back filling 9 terraces, much like the Incas (in a somewhat smaller scale, but do not mention that to the ones digging) with gravel, sand, soil and railroad ties.  We are also using string lines, water levels and "eyeballs" to get everything plumb, level and straight, much like the Incas.

Bredar, J. (Interviewer) & Wright, K. (Interviewee). (2009). A Marvel of Inca Engineering [Interview transcript]. Retrived from NOVAbeta Ancients Worlds website:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/wright-inca-engineering.html

Designing a Mosque

By Sufiyanu Momoh

The mosque serves as a great part of Muslim architecture. Mosques serve as landmarks in many Muslim societies as you see the minarets standing high in the skyline, and also the call for prayers five times a day can also serve as a point of direction and location. The architecture of mosques all around the world vary immensely even though they all have some similar element like the mihrab facing Mecca, courtyards and minarets but these are just minor differences in the various styles of mosques. In the early days mosques borrowed architecture elements from its surrounding before they established their architecture

     Every major mosques had certain elements before the modern movements in the twentieth century, elements such as the hypostyle hall which usually has a flat roof above it and possibly a small dome, large openings in the center of the building covered by a massive dome or pyramidal pitched roofs vaulted halls on both sides of a bi axially divided rectangular court yard. Triple domed mosque with large court yards or pavilions enclosed by landscape spaces.

   In the earlier days monotheistic religions were opposed to the use of buildings as a house for their faith as they would have preferred staying out in the open or the natural caves. they were strong on these believes until their leaders thought that any faith without followers would die out quick and a means of keeping these followers is by having a symbol such as a building. Even though there are no surviving buildings from the first two years of the Islamic religion. There are various literature that described what these types of buildings might have looked like. At the beginning during the Umayyad period the architecture of the mosque was based on the prophets Muhammad’s house in medina. Because we do not have any surviving structures from the earlier time of Islam no particular type of structure can standard to represent the mosque. Even little components that have strong meaning such as the cross in the case of Christianity and seems to exist in almost every church is absent in the mosque. Components such as the minarets and mihrabs serve functional purposes in the mosques and are not necessarily a symbol for them. As a matter of fact, the religion Islam does not really have a main symbol except for the ka’aba in Mecca

   There are various components that serve as part of a mosque that can be seen in various parts of the world and these may vary in looks in different places. Most mosques have a demarcated space for prayers which could be completely closed or partly open or completely open. In every mosque there most be a wall facing Mecca. At the center of the wall  is the mihrab which is the most decorated part of the mosque. It is like a recessed or niche but not a sacred place like in the case of Christianity. The mihrab is usually semicircular in plan just like the roman niche. The wall facing Mecca is also known as the qibla. Because everyone has to face Mecca during prayers, they all line up perpendicular to the mihrab while they pray

    Another part of the mosque is the minbar or the pulpit; it is always placed at the right of the mihrab, consisting of a staircase that leads to a small platform which is open crowned by a cupola shaped roof. It is usually used to deliver messages to the followers in the mosques. The mosque also contains other elements such as the dikka which is positioned in line with the mihrab. It serves as a reference of what the imam would be like at the front of the mosque. Another major component of the mosque used in the earlier centuries was the maqsura used to protect the imams of the mosque. Most mosques if not all have what is called the pool. This is basically a place for Muslims to perform their ablution for prayers. The minaret of course is a major part of the most mosques as these may be built in different designs. These towers like structures usually stands as a landmark for the mosque but the main purpose of the minaret is to ensure the voice of the person calling the prayer travels its furthest distance.