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Engineering Architecture. Advances of a technological practice
- 10 March 2010
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Alberto Pugnale, Engineering, Evolutionary techniques, Form-finding, Parametric Design, Research, Scripting/Tooling
- 3 Comments
I am going to defend my PhD thesis on 9 April 2010 at Politecnico di Torino. The core of my research regards the development of Genetic Algorithms for the solution of structural, acoustic and geometric issues of shell and gridshell structures. You can read it here. In the appendix, you will…
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Grace Hopper and Grasshopper, what a coincidence (or “What does history teach us?”)
- 27 June 2009
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Engineering, Research, Scripting/Tooling
- 8 Comments
This is just a thought I wrote in Italian in 2009. I believe I was right when I made the connection between Grasshopper and Grace Murray Hopper (probably because of her work on Automatic programming). The Grasshopper banner confirms me that on 9 December, every year. Rutten is a clever…
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We have completed a paper on the history of construction of the Church of Longuelo. The authors are: Carlo Deregibus and Alberto Pugnale. The paper will be published on the “Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium 2009: Evolution and Trends in Design, Analysis and Construction…
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Rhinoceros and Ansys
- 6 November 2008
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Blogs, Engineering, Parametric Design, Research, Scripting/Tooling, Teaching and learning
- 6 Comments
With reference to an article on the IAACBlog (now removed), I replied to the author request: “I was forced to use the workbench environment because i was unable to achieve the same contact results with Ansys classical version, ultimately ending the potential to have a fully automated program. I am still working…
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Optimal design of glass grid shells with quadrilateral elements by means of a genetic algorithm
- 9 September 2008
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Engineering, Evolutionary techniques, Form-finding, Parametric Design, Publications/Conferences, Research, Scripting/Tooling
- 0 Comments
This paper was recently presented at the IASS-IACM 2008 (Ithaca NY, USA). The authors are Mario Sassone and Alberto Pugnale. You can read the full text on ResearchGate. UPDATE. In 2010, the article was revised, extended and published on the International Journal of Space Structures. Read it on ResearchGate. Abstract In…
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On the interaction between architecture and engineering: the acoustic optimization of a reinforced concrete shell
- 9 September 2008
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Engineering, Evolutionary techniques, Parametric Design, Publications/Conferences, Research, Scripting/Tooling
- 0 Comments
This paper was recently presented at the IASS-IACM 2008 (Ithaca NY, USA). The authors are Mario Sassone, Tomàs Mendez and Alberto Pugnale. You can read the full text on ResearchGate. Abstract In this paper a computational morphogenesis process is applied to the design and the optimization of the shell roof of…
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Early customisers at SOM
- 11 January 2008
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Architects, Engineers, Artists, Engineering, History of construction, Parametric Design
- 1 Comment
“Graham promoted the creation of a computerized program called Building Optimization Program (BOP), aimed to cut down the construction costs. This program was designed as a diagnostic tool by which architects and engineers could identify the points where constructive costs could be cut down, but, of course, it was accused…
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John Frazer – An evolutionary architecture
- 10 January 2008
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Architects, Engineers, Artists, Books, Evolutionary techniques, Research, Researchers, Academics, Teaching and learning
- 2 Comments
[…] the computer is a device with the power and speed to meet the requirements of the limits of our imaginations. We need this power to compress evolutionary time and space so that results can be achieved more realistically in our life-times. The emphasis, however, rests in the techniques, in…
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Mutsuro Sasaki gave a speech at Politecnico di Torino on Tuesday, 6 November 2007. He presented his recent projects and book “Flux Structures”. After the presentation, Mario Sassone and I had the opportunity to interview Mutsuro Sasaki for “Il Giornale dell’architettura”. Click here to read the interview (in Italian). Below, the flyer…
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Evolutionary Structural Optimization in Shell Design
- 22 October 2007
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Engineering, Evolutionary techniques, Parametric Design, Publications/Conferences, Research, Scripting/Tooling
- 0 Comments
This is my first paper. It was presented at the Special Workshop on the “Advanced Numerical Analysis of Shell-like Structures”, which was held in Zagreb (26-28 September 2007). This was actually my first attempt to apply a Genetic Algorithm to optimise a simple hypar shell. The code was entirely written from…
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Small mutations
- 13 April 2007
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Architects, Engineers, Artists, Books, Engineering, Evolutionary techniques
- 0 Comments
Una piccola quantità d’ordine ha avuto origine dal disordine, senza essere pianificata da nessuna mente. Richard Dawkins, 1986 Lo studio delle tecniche evolutive artificiali è volto in gran parte al miglioramento dell’efficienza dello strumento di per sé. Cito oggi un libro di Richard Dawkins che riflette principalmente su questo tema,…
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Survival or Evolution, what’s the goal?
- 5 April 2007
- By Alberto Pugnale
- In Engineering, Evolutionary techniques, Scripting/Tooling
- 0 Comments
“Manuale sulle reti neurali” is the first book I read about Genetic Algorithms. Below you can find some initial thoughts, in Italian, which I wrote when I started my PhD. The point of this text is: architects using genetic algorithms need to define good genotypes to get good phenotypes of their…