Do your shading devices know where they’re at? Well they should. In New England, we like a nice big shade on the South, almost nothing on the North, and a whole lot of medium in between, maybe we add some verticals if we’re smart. Seems simple enough, so how do you get your shades to be a little self aware? Gimme 12 minutes.
20110718
20110715
Iron Python Scripting in Revit
Back in 2009 Jeremy Tammik alerted us to Daren Thomas’s RevitPythonShell, a way to directly explore the Revit API and do a more scripted style of programming. So this is something that has been freely available and out in the world for a long time . . . why am I not seeing it installed on everyone’s machines?
I remember reading about it in 2009 and kept telling myself I should look into it. Well, I finally managed to and it is really cool. Only available at the moment for release 2011, but just hold on!
Much more to come on this topic.
20110704
Bridges, Man . . .

So I spaced out and totally totally missed the deadline for Design by Many’s pedestrian bridge competition. C’est la Vie, that’s what I get for going on vacation. But you, my friend, can still participate by getting in on the community voting.
Anyway, looks like the other submissions blow this little twisty out of the water, but I will post my Vasari file here for your amusement and dissection.
It has parameters to adjust the span and curvature of the bridge
The basic construction is a repeating segment
A twisted helical net on the outside
A suspension cable system supporting the deck.
But I’m pretty sure that, at the moment, the main structural systems are good intentions and hope.