Morphosis

[Bruce Hart]

I've often browsed through Morphosis books over the years to pick up ideas. Does anyone know what modelling software they use? I'm especially interested in what BIM software they employ - particularly at the concept design stage.

[John Dollus]

Morphosis was part of a guest lecture series in Florida a couple years ago and i seem to recall he said they mainly used microstation and some Rhino.

[Bruce Hart]

Cool - thanks for the reply John

[Jonathan]

Cenceptual design and BIM do not necessarily go together; particularaly with design led proposals yet Microstation, as John mentions, will certainly fit the bill.

[Bruce Hart]

Cenceptual design and BIM do not necessarily go together; particularaly with design led proposals yet Microstation, as John mentions, will certainly fit the bill.

 

yeah I agree. At times I see some of the designs they come up with and I wonder if Revit could be used to construct them. Based on my experience the answer is often no (or with great difficulty) - but perhaps I would be surprised at what people can come up with. Conceptual design in Revit seems to give things a "boxy" look to me.

[martinsummers]

Morphosis uses several different softwares at various stages in the design process. Everything in the end is funneled through Microstation as the primary BIM/document delivery software. In the very early stages of the design process, it really depends on who the designer is within the office. If you are faster at working through concepts with Rhino or Maya then you can, but that information has to translate over into the Microstation model so that the rest of the team can easily reference the model live and develop different parts simultaneously. Some designs are developed in a software that is basically a java platform that one of the designers wrote for his own work. These models get translated from the java platform into Rhino and then exported to either Microstation or Catia for more advanced development and contractor coordination. In the end, software is simply a tool and the right tool is chosen for the problem that is being solved. Hope this helps and thanks to Jeff for pointing me to this discussion.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

yeah I agree. At times I see some of the designs they come up with and I wonder if Revit could be used to construct them. Based on my experience the answer is often no (or with great difficulty) - but perhaps I would be surprised at what people can come up with. Conceptual design in Revit seems to give things a "boxy" look to me.

 

I still haven't seen a design that was started in Revit that didn't look like it was started in Revit. No matter how many sketch tools they add, people still start building floor plates, and worrying about the function. They would be better off with trace paper and a pencil.

[Bruce Hart]

...... In the end, software is simply a tool and the right tool is chosen for the problem that is being solved. Hope this helps and thanks to Jeff for pointing me to this discussion.

 

Thanks for the info Martin and Travis. One or two people in my firm (I call them "Revit Fan Boys") think that it can do everything from the get-go. I have at times tried to point out what you have said - pick the right tool for the right job. Revit's great for some things, not so good for others. It's very interesting to me to hear how Morphosis do things.

 

I've written on another thread how I wish I could more easily take concept design models built in Max and use the same geometry to work things up in Revit - like the Rhino/Maya to Microstation pipeline mentioned. Unfortunately the Max to Revit workflow is less than ideal - mainly due to the polygon surface environment of Max and the solid model setup of Revit. Hopefully things will improve in time.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Bruce Hart