Hak Lee
Computational Architectural Design & Software Engineering
Just after entering university in the spring of 2012, I received my first architectural design class to choose and describe an object. After a brief deliberation, I chose the sponge soap dish in my bathroom.
As you can see, a sponge is riddled with holes, and there is no repeating pattern in their shapes—each cavity is unique. When I first chose the sponge, it simply hadn't occurred to me that I would eventually have to draw it by hand and build physical models of it. The moment the assignment brief came out, I realized I had made the wrong choice. For someone who had hardly ever picked up a pencil to draw, a sponge was never going to be something I could render by hand.
But deadlines are deadlines. To finish on time, I had to find a way to simplify the sponge for representation. Wondering if people who study sponge structures might know something, I searched around and learned that sponge structures follow the form and generation principles of Voronoi diagrams. As I researched Voronoi diagrams further, I discovered that a software called Rhinoceros 3D has a tool called Grasshopper that can easily visualize Voronoi diagrams.
Fortunately, using Grasshopper to draw the Voronoi diagram wasn't too difficult, and I was able to successfully visualize the sponge structure and bring it to the class. It was the first time I realized that by skillfully using computers, I could instantly create forms that I couldn't even imagine with just my hands and brain.
After finishing the semester, I reopened the Grasshopper window and noticed there were countless components that I never dared to touch. Questions arose - what do other components do? If I learn to use the other components, what diverse forms could I generate with it? These inquiries sparked an exploration that continues to this day.
