Re-Modeling the Eden Project using Rhino Grasshopper and Autocad 2010

Project description:
The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in the United Kingdom, including the world's largest greenhouse. The complex comprises a number of domes that house plant species from around the world, each dome emulating a natural biome. The domes are made out of hundreds of hexagons plus a few pentagons that connect the whole construction; each of these is a transparent cushion made of tough plastic. The first dome emulates a tropical environment, the second a warm temperate, Mediterranean environment.

The project was conceived by Tim Smit and designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw and engineering firm Anthony Hunt and Associates . Davis Langdon carried out the project management, Sir Robert McAlpine and Alfred McAlpine did the construction and MERO designed and built the biomes. Land Use Consultants led the masterplan and landscape design. The project took 2½ years to construct and opened to the public on 17 March 2001.

Used software:
- Autodesk AutoCad 2010® has managed to add a host of new features and capabilities to its flagship product. But while last year the new ribbon-bar user interface overshadowed a relatively short list of new capabilities, this time around AutoCAD 2010 offers some incredibly powerful new functionality for both 2D and 3D users (incl. New Parametric Drawing Tools, Dynamic blocks, Organic 3D Modeling - 3D solid, 3D mesh, 3D surfaces, 3D faces, polygon meshes, polyface meshes, regions, Smooth Object tool etc.)
- Rhinoceros® is a stand-alone, commercial nurbs-based 3D-modeling tool, developed by Robert McNeel & Associates.Like many modeling applications, Rhino also features a scripting language based on the Visual Basic language, and an SDK that allows reading and writing Rhino files directly. Rhinoceros 3d gained its popularity in architectural design in part because of the Grasshopper plug-in for computational design.
- For designers who are exploring new shapes using generative algorithms, Grasshopper® is a graphical algorithm editor tightly integrated with Rhino’s 3-D modeling tools. Unlike RhinoScript, Grasshopper requires no knowledge of programming or scripting, but still allows designers to build form generators from the simple to the awe-inspiring.


First presentation:
http://designinterfaces.blogspot.com/2010/02/gis-geographic-information-systems.html