ABSTRACT
This paper forms part of broader research collaboration between the design firm Gridshell.it, and the Department of Architecture, University of Naples that investigates the use of digital design tools in timber-based structures. This paper reports on the development of a digital-based application for form finding of timber post-formed gridshells. It provides the background to the current stage of development and outlines the mapping and code structure of the application. The tool is seen as a response to Gridshell Form Finding Tool or GFFT (Pone et al, 2013); its objectives are two-fold:
Perform a fast geometrical and structural optimisation to transform an arbitrary freeform into a viable timber gridshell structure;
Support conceptual design of timber gridshells in the heuristic stage of the design process; The enhancement application, integrated with Grasshopper software, promotes optimisation capacity for structurally verified form finding at the early design phase of project development. It addresses earlier shortcomings of the tool to improve usability and accuracy. A reverse-engineering procedure has also verified the outcomes of this method, which effectively corresponds to the gridshell form obtained through a classical dynamic relaxation.
