I don't like that I am recommending it, but the voronoin rhino script would do the trick.

Voronoi (with no n at the end)

break all the terra cotta panels into pieces and get an old-school dry-laid stone mason to install them on the wall. watching this traditional method is an amazing lesson in non-randomness, control, artistry, intuition-through-experience, and intention. supports a dying skillset and no computers needed.

there was a article on middle eastern facades on Reuters a couple of weeks before, it talks exactly about that... fascinating read

"In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math" is the name of the article that the NYTimes ran on 2/27. It's great reading, very interesting, and tzenyujuei, great call on recommeding it by the way.

I don't work in architecture, nor do I have an arch education (although hopefully I'll be able to go back to school in Fall 08)so you can take my advice or leave it, but I was thinking.....

Herzog and de Mueron used an arabic passage to create a beautiful nonrepeating pattern on a cultural building they did in Spain, or Morocco (can't remember). They took the passage, created a relief of it and kept rotating the relief 45 degrees on the same plane, super imposing each rotation on the last. This created a pattern that resembled arabic script, but wasn't legible in anyway. It had a distinctly Islamic look and feel to it, without carrying any message. If you employed a similar technique using a larger passage/ visual base you might be able to cover the surface you're talking about.

i think is called arabesque.

btw, anyone knows if bentley v.8 has those generative components programs? any good tutorials to pick up those new toys?

last semester i did a studio project using a penrose formation - it allows for an infinite irregular field. but it's based on rhombi, so if you can't cut the terra cotta, that probably won't work.

so,

since march 14th is national pi day (3.14) - why not use that to arrange the tiles: 1 finish A, 4 finish B, 1 finish C, 5 finish A ...etc. the contractors would love it.

I love that boxes are bad, Voronoi is good. I know why you're saying you hate to recommend it. Every other project seems to be a Voronoi and they almost always look identical. They make holes in walls or useless floor plans. I could go on, but I won't. Just wanted to agree with your comment hah.

Boxes are Voronoi, Hasselhoff. A stack of cubes is just a set of Voronoi cells whose generating points are on an orthogonal lattice. You can make Mies w/ Voronoi.

I agree with you that there's a lack of imagination out there where this kind of geometry is involved. But it doesn't mean that Voronoi (or any kind of irregular or informal pattern) is better or worse than a regular pattern, just that people are subconsciously recreating the last cool thing they saw.

you cannot design randomness.

Exactly. And I'm trying to find a picture of the building in the anecdote I want to use to illustrate this point....

Sorry, don't see anybody talking about randomness on this thread. 'Nonrepeating', 'informal', 'aperiodic' and all the other terms used so far do not refer to the same thing.

noMSG's original post asked specifically for help on a 'non-random pattern'.

And anyway, you're probably right, vado. People are notoriously bad at coming up with robustly random sequences, whether in design or in math. The best way to get some random input is from nature, like radioactive decay, or atmospheric turbulence ... Most software based random number generators just grab some digits from your computer's clock and run it through a bunch of messy math. Once you have some suitably noisy input, it's pretty trivial to plug that into something parametric and tweak away at it as a design element.

Or maybe your comment was more ideological than practical?

correct 7/6/5... the goal of this post was to try and understand a way of developing a single (or multiple) cluster of pattern, which can than be repeated over a large field. this would maximize my control over any changes that could be made from both an aesthetic and efficient vantage. the last thing i'd want to do is simply press 'randomize' while those powers to be tell me when to stop (corporate firm much?!)

i've been playing around with penrose tiles, and, although i'm working with rectilinear forms rather than rhombi, the technique still generates some interesting patterns by using the intersecting points to inform what material finish to apply. no concrete conclusions yet...

i've enjoyed the semantics that have thus come about, however. i agree, you can't design randomness, but you can absolutely orchestrate it.

Liberty bell, what building were you going to show a picture of?

OK well then along the lines of orchestrating it: when Will Bruder's Kol AMi synagogue in Phoenix was being built, they struggled mightily with getting a "random" jaggedness of the CMU block walls:



because the masons kept unconsciously drifting into patterns and attempts to "balance" the composition. So they had to place a horizontal plumb line - what is that called? - with a string, and instruct the masons to pick the block up with one hand and basically heave it into place - if its leading face landed anywhere within 3/4" to either side of the line, the block stayed exactly where it was.

That is the best story I have heard of how to build randomness.

But yes, you're after something different; I still think it's a cool story to tell.

That is a cool story, thx lb.

I think it does go to the point, though. We can't help but look for, and make, patterns everywhere, so to get outside our own brains we need some kind of coin toss.

But is there really a thing as a true coin toss meaning that under the same set of circumstances, multiple results can occur?

I don't know, you'd have to ask a mathematician. Gut says no, how would you ever get the same circumstances to really ever occur twice? But who knows? Sounds too much like metaphysics for this board.

Fed Square has a similar range of limitations as you propose, zinc, stone and glass/mesh tiles over an irregular facade.



This is an aperiodic pinwheel tiling system. Have a look at Penrose Tiling but like others have said, a non-repeating pattern is hard to design, and I think a non repeating pattern is a confusion of terms. You might be looking for a series of interlocking patterns to form a meta pattern for want of a better word.

There are complex mathematical problems to with tiling planes.

despite all the cool thinking that probably went into that ^^^^ project, and after all the hoopla about that firm's work that i've heard, i still can't get past thinking that thing is buttugly.

yeh, it is funny isn't it?

all that work for a superficial and somehow, to me, stunningly boring (ugly) effect. maybe is better in person...

I really like it.

Just goes to show ya ...

noMSG - for an easier way to create a seemingly non-repeating pattern with standard parts, check out details of Zumthor's Thermals Baths in Vals. The layers of stone - although appearing as random strata are actually made up of three different thickness of slab. By arranging the 3 thicknesses in 3 different orders and stacking these different orders on top of each other all sense of pattern is lost and it appears as non repeating.

Given the terrecotta panels you are using, I imagine this could be achieved quite easily by using one whole tile, and one cut in two, creating a thick and thin alternative.

Just a thought.

Maybe you could make an L-system to generate a pattern.
You can 'control' the patterns by changing the rules.

links:
wikipedia
mh-portfolio

Just a design I did. It is a high school in Nijmegen, Holland and it took me 8 months to design the facade from scratch to working drawings. The elevations consist of approx 3000 different laser cut aluminium panels. Some sections repeat themself in order to minimize the amount of panels.

The link is actually a webcam. So at night you have some pretty poor images. This should be fine at daytime.

tetris...

speaking of patterns... i need a camo pattern for an idea i'm working on...so if anyone comes across on that i can use as a jpeg that is large, email me..... i found some online but i need a larger range of forms in the pattern

b

doesnt that make it not a pattern? seems like youre looking for trickery:

conservapedia

i disagree that you can't design randomness, you HAVE to design randomness, because in nature, there is no such thing.