Intricate Geometry
The "PALAU DE LES ARTS REINA SOFIA" is one of the most intricately designed and balanced opera houses in the world surrounded originally by water in the city of science in Valencia Spain. With over 55,000 square meters the facility is worldly renowned. The geometry is also so sleek and it makes you want to explore every part of it. It calls to you and oozes classic tonnes over a modern wrapped structure. I simply can not get enough of this structure and so I set to study. I studied how one might begin to design this or reverse engineer it in a way that captures the true likeness within the confines of the tools available which were Revit, Dynamo, and a render engine.
Coding
To keep the design on schedule, easily identify and modify different code portions, labeling and color coating different functions to specific colours was paramount. As you can see below each portion of the code is made manually and thus many code segments can be condensed into certain areas whereas other areas might not be as dense and may have even elegance in the code structure derived. If you notice in this particular scheme I used pink as the exported item per code-grouping to quickly hide and or modify each element as required. Working by layers I was able to hide specific items at a time while holding onto other important components and or details - this greatly improved the quality of each component in the assembly.
Calatrava and his work
Santiago Calatrava is an Engineer and Architect both at the same time, giving him an edge and understanding how to push the bar in every design. I admire his work and it was a challenging honour to be able to understand how Calatrava may have designed this masterpiece with his design team. I have to say that getting the upper roof structure to work out was one of the most challenging parts of the entire design. Like Calatrava must have found out, Vector calculations, in this case, are critical and drive half of the major operations completed on the model. These vector calculations allow for the very nature of this structure to shine and thus without them, it would not be possible to create such intricate geometric components. These components then work as a puzzle to balance out and stay together. From the tensioning arm to the roof, to the main beam holding the roof to the rest of the inner and outer shells. Each part of the assembly is required to balance out all of the forces and stay at equilibrium.
Rebirth of my Dreams
I had dreamt of this building many times and wondered whether it was possible to design this and so I set forth and coded part by part. In the tension post, I redesigned the flow to opposite corners creating this great joint both the top chords and the lower structure end rib. Change is good and in this case, it seems to reduce the overall required material and makes a sleeker joint overall. The overall build took several weeks to get the correct dimensions and shape to follow the correct mold. In the end, though It worked out with great results.
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