Body to Architecture: Parametric Wearables, Volumetric Forms, and Architectural Artifacts
This 2-day live workshop with RJ Weaver of ORBWEAVER moves computational design between the scale of the body and architecture. On Day 1 you design a parametric jewelry "seed" in Rhino and Grasshopper with Pufferfish, Mesh+, Weaverbird, and Dendro. On Day 2 you grow that seed into recursive towers and speculative structures with Anemone, and fuse them into continuous architectural artifacts with Dendro.
Body to Architecture explores how computational design systems can move between the scale of the body, the object, and architecture.
On Day 1, you will design the "seed": a small parametric jewelry or wearable object built in Rhino and Grasshopper using Pufferfish, Mesh+, Dendro, and Weaverbird. You will learn how curves, attractors, morphing, mesh subdivision, and volumetric operations combine into intricate organic forms, all controlled by a small, editable set of parameters.
On Day 2, that seed becomes the starting point for something much bigger. Using Anemone to build recursive, loop-based systems, you will grow your seed into towers, columns, and speculative architectural structures, then fuse the iterations into continuous volumetric forms with Dendro.
The point is not to simply scale up a piece of jewelry into a building. You will learn how to extract the geometric DNA of a design, its repetition, hierarchy, growth, thickness, and deformation, and reuse that logic at radically different scales. Instead of modeling an elaborate tower directly, you will design the rules that let it grow.
To follow along you will need Rhino 8 (Grasshopper is included) and five free plugins: Pufferfish, Dendro, Anemone, Mesh+, and Weaverbird. Installation links and project files will be shared inside Premium before Day 1.
- Designing a parametric wearable "seed" object with curves, attractors, morphing, and volumetric modeling, controlled by a small set of editable parameters
- Controlled morphing with Pufferfish: twisting, tapering, stretching, and transforming geometry within spatial domains
- Moving between Grasshopper geometry and mesh workflows with Mesh+, and refining meshes into sculptural forms with Weaverbird subdivision and smoothing
- Turning curves and meshes into volumetric fields with Dendro: thicken, fuse, blend, subtract, smooth, and convert back to clean meshes
- Building recursive, loop-based systems with Anemone: progressive scaling, iterative rotation, repeated displacement, and recursive growth
- Extracting the geometric DNA of a design and reusing its rules at radically different scales, from jewelry to towers
- Growing a speculative architectural artifact from your own seed, with a reusable workflow for your own projects
Day 1. Seed: From Body Detail to Parametric Artifact
- Establishing the geometric language: curves, attractors, and simple modules
- Controlled morphing and deformation with Pufferfish
- Mesh construction and subdivision with Mesh+ and Weaverbird
- Volumetric thickening and fusion with Dendro
- Finishing a parametric seed object whose rules can grow beyond the body
Day 2. Growth: From Seed to Architectural Tower
- Recursive and iterative systems with Anemone: loops, scaling, rotation, displacement
- Feeding the seed back into itself to generate towers, columns, and speculative structures
- Fusing iterations into continuous volumetric masses with Dendro
- Designing the rules that let a tower grow, instead of modeling it directly
- Finalizing a speculative architectural artifact grown from your Day 1 seed
RJ Weaver
RJ Weaver is a London-based computational designer, educator, and creative technologist exploring the intersection of parametric design, digital fabrication, and wearable body architecture. Trained in Industrial Design at Virginia Tech and Computational and Advanced Design at DesignMorphine, he has spent the past decade developing workflows with Grasshopper, Houdini, robotics, and emerging digital tools.
As 3D Design Director at ORBWEAVER, he creates experimental jewelry and wearable sculpture through computational and fabrication-driven processes, with work exhibited in London galleries and featured on fashion runways.