Course’s scope

This is a course given at BA level 6 at EPFL of 3 ECTS. The objective of the course is to empower design students with computational thinking and tools. This course reviews the basics of 3D modeling to establish the foundations of computational architectural problem-solving via different methods. The main objective of the course is to develop a computational mindset to maximize the use of efficient digital tools in design projects.

This course is composed of 3 modules:

1. 3D modeling in Rhino where the fundamentals of geometry and interface use are reviewed and where we start scratching the surface of common CAD interface via the use of macros.
2. Parametric modeling (visual scripting, Grasshopper) where the parameterization of basic and advanced geometric elements is studied.
3. Computational modeling where we introduce the students to (iron)Python and RhinoCommons.

We decided to restrain the amount of teaching content provided to students to not cover all the software’s capabilities, but rather to focus on trouble shooting, examples from our practice, and creative programming.

All the teaching material or the course are made open-source and available in this website.

This course was possible thanks to Prof. Yves Weinand (IBOIS) who decided to allocate IBOIS researchers’ time for the creation and maintenance of it. A special thanks goes to Dr. Julien Gamerro, ex-Post-Doc IBOIS that launched the previous version of this course in 2022.

Teaching commitee