SAGRADA FAMILIA CHALLENGE

[arisleme]

ok, here is the thing:

I am new to Revit and pretty early I realised it is more of an analysis than a design tool.
Still, most people support that it has no limitations. So here is the challenge: do Sagrada familia!
(not all of it, just a piece of the ceiling, or a bell tower, or the entrance!). Gaudi did it with strings and weights! so now it should be way easier!

My point, is not to attack the software (which is a very good one) but to argue that our age has moved so much towards the efficient and cost-effective, that has forgotten one of the most important things in life: beauty! and so have our tools! and our tools form us and the way we design and perceive the world! 
How is it possible, that an architectural tool has no spirals!?!?!? No archimedian spiral, no golden spiral, no logarithmic spiral! (thank god they left the circle)

So... prove me wrong! do Sagrada Familia! prove you are free and capable to do whatever you like!!!

[ToanDN]

I am not going to prove you are wrong but you can do spirals in Revit rather easily. Just because there isn't a specific tool labeled Making Spiral doesn't mean it is impossible to do.

[loboarch · Accepted solution]

I am not going to officially tackle the challenge thrown out here, perhaps someone else will?

If it is spirals you are looking for, I just happened to be looking through some old images of mine for another reason and came across this image of "spirals" I made a number of years ago. The image shows a number of instances of a 3d sign wave "spiral" I made. It was 1 parametric family that was a sign wave form in 3d. so spirals CAN be made if you take the time to do them. They can even be parametric if you want to work out the math.

[rmoore3]

Check out projectsoane.com or the book "Renaissance Revit" https://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Revit-Creating-Classical-Architecture/dp/1492150924

[arisleme]

Actually, I have recently bought this book, and realised that It took GREAT devotion, skills and knowledge by Paul F. Aubin, in order to create a capital which by modeling standards would be bellow average (I am not attacking him, his result was great given the tools he had) and this is the crem de la crem from there on, it goes downhill. 
I will mark this post as "resolved" because I see not a lot of people are interested in this approach and by no means is it my intention to sound negative towards the software which is a great one at what it does-solving the 80% of its user's problems-. The only thing I wanted to point out is that as somebody who is interested in harmony, beauty and mathematical purity of forms I feel very restricted by these tools. (all bim apps, not just Revit)

These are tools Van der Rohe would love but Kalikrates, Gaudi or Saarinen would hate!

P.S. 

There are a lot of curves which science has provided us with, each with its own attributes and beauty. Don't reduce them to circular arc segments!

[ToanDN]

While not as robust as Rhino, Revit can do freeform modeling with its Conceptual Massing and Adaptive component.  On top of that, you can program in Dynamo and bring your freeform models to a new height.

[Anonymous]

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@arisleme wrote:

Actually, I have recently bought this book, and realised that It took GREAT devotion, skills and knowledge by Paul F. Aubin, in order to create a capital which by modeling standards would be bellow average (I am not attacking him, his result was great given the tools he had) and this is the crem de la crem from there on, it goes downhill. 
I will mark this post as "resolved" because I see not a lot of people are interested in this approach and by no means is it my intention to sound negative towards the software which is a great one at what it does-solving the 80% of its user's problems-. The only thing I wanted to point out is that as somebody who is interested in harmony, beauty and mathematical purity of forms I feel very restricted by these tools. (all bim apps, not just Revit)

These are tools Van der Rohe would love but Kalikrates, Gaudi or Saarinen would hate!

P.S. 

There are a lot of curves which science has provided us with, each with its own attributes and beauty. Don't reduce them to circular arc segments!

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Totally agree with you. Revit is ok for straight projects.

If you really want organic soft you need to go with Rhino or Sketchup.

A simple example of a spiral shape doesn't mean or show anything to prove that Revit is fantastic for that matter.

Very poor criterion defense.