Hi there,

I thought we take a break from modelling towers and try modelling something that exists in real life. It is a fairly straightforward model and one that you normally would not apply parametric techniques to model. But I am doing so in the hopes that it will better teach us how to use Grasshopper.

The model we are going to be creating is the Winton Guest House, which is a pretty famous architectural piece. It’s a 4-part series that will get you familiar with how to model something in Grasshopper by looking at drawings and images. It’s a very similar process that I go through when I use Grasshopper for modelling at work.

Overall Learning Features

• Managing a medium-sized script

• Canvas Organisation and management

• what it is like to create a Grasshopper workflow from a set of images and references

Learning Features of Part 1

• Establishing a workflow from a reference

• Creating and extruding geometry

• Lofting and rotating geometry

Modelling

1. Creating the rectangle

There are many ways to start this model but I like to start with the easiest one and work my way through the model. For me, the easiest one to start is the simple rectangular building with the rotated chimney on the top.

I start by creating a simple rectangle using the rectangle component and then I extrude that rectangle up by some height and I have the rectangular building completed.

2. Creating the chimney above the rectangle

I then make my way top, to create the chimney on the top

To create the chimney, I move the base rectangle up by the same amount that I extruded before, just to get a curve at the roof of the previous building.

Then, since the curve came from the rectangle component, I know the order of the edges is consistent. I can then use List Item to select the right edge, in this case, it’s the last edge of the rectangle.

I can then use the evaluate curve component to get a point on the curve. I am going to choose the centre of the curve, which can be done by re-parametrising the curve and putting a 0.5 into the t input of the component.

I have to then rotate the chimney by rotating the plane around its origin by roughly 45 degrees. I can then use another rectangle component to create the base floor profile and extrude it up by some amount again.

and with that, we have the first building of this model done.

3. Creating the Central Prism

Like before, I will use the base curve of the first rectangular building to create the central prism building.

To create the central prism building, I have to again select the right edge of the first rectangle that I created and then choose a point of that edge.

I moved the slider around so that I roughly get a point that corresponds to the red cross in the plan view of the model below.

When I look at the shape of the central prism building, I notice that it is a rectangle with a vertex that has been shifted slightly in the X and Y direction.

So, I create another rectangle from the chosen point. Exploded the curve and selected the right vertex and moved it by a distance in the X and the Y direction. And then merge it back with the order vertices to maintain the order of the list.

I then use a polyline component to create a curve between the points which I can again extrude upwards by a certain amount to create the overall building.

4. Creating the Central Prism Roof

To create this tapered roof, I will move the prism polyline up to the top of the extruded b-rep.

and the way I see it, the top of the roof just uses the same floor profile but is scaled down a factor. So, I scale the floor profile down by a factor and move it upwards by some amount.

Lofting the two curves will then give me the roof for the building.

5. Creating the Prism Trailer

Using the same concept but in a different plane, I can also create the prism tailer building.

Instead of creating a rectangle in the XY plane, I just have to create one in the XZ plane. To start, I have to first select the right edge of the central prism to work from.

Which roughly corresponds to this point in plan view.

Then, similar to before, I will create a rectangle on an XZ plane, select the right vertex to move, move it, and then re-join with the others to create the prism polyline.

Then I can extrude it in the negative Y direction to create the building

Final Thoughts

And with that, we have come to the end of part 1 because I think the other portion of the model follows a different workflow than what we have seen so far.

The one pattern that you might recognise is my style of creating these buildings. It roughly follows these steps :

1. Choose an edge of an existing rectangle/curve

2. Choose a point on the edge

3. Create a rectangle from the chosen point

4. Manipulate the rectangle if need be (rotate or move a vertex)

5. Extrude/loft in the right direction.

I hope that shows how I created that workflow and the mindset that I used when modelling. In the next article, we will look at getting to 80% completion of the model.

This article belongs to a 4-part series that is about modelling the Winton Guest House in Grasshopper. It aims to demonstrate how Grasshopper is used to create models in projects.

Part 1 - Setup and Modelling

Part 2 - Modelling

Part 3 - Complex Geometry Modelling

Part 4 - Organise, Refactor and Finishing Touches

You can find the Youtube version of this Newsletter here :

To get the Grasshopper Script for this model, sign up below (if you aren’t already) :