Illustration, words, and design by SV, as part of a larger publication to be released in 2023. Art direction, editing, font selection by Bike Durham (Carmen Kuan & Justin Laidlaw).






Illustration, words, and design by SV, as part of a larger publication to be released in 2023. Art direction, editing, font selection by Bike Durham (Carmen Kuan & Justin Laidlaw).
Rhino is more and more advantageous as a primary design AND drafting solution. (Rhino Forum “does anyone use as primary app”, …). Advances in Rhino modeling and Grasshopper have made Rhino more and more attractive, at the same time that major, big-budget architectural firms are increasingly frustrated with the established players (Dezeen). That being said, there are difficult sticking points, including managing layer visibility in 2d drawings (aka layouts & details). Hopefully these methods are easily adaptable for your application, the principles should be applicable to architecture, exhibit design, etc.
It’s the first method you learn about, but it also has a major downfall: if you create a new layer, it will be visible in ALLLLLLLL of your details. The only way to turn it off in all of them (that I know of) is to double-click into each of them and run HideInDetail (or use the layer palette). Extremely annoying :*(
EDIT 2022-08-04: I don’t recommend Method 1. The main pitfall is that Layout Layer visibility AND Detail Layer visibility must be changed for each layer you wish to change visibility for. This leads to 2x the number of clicks for each layer you wish to edit. I believe this is a bug in Rhino, but I’m not sure. Either way, I no longer recommend this method.
By using the Layer Print Width, you have the opportunity to keep a layer off in all existing details / layouts by default. Downsides of the Print Width method:
Here’s how to use the method, for a few situations:
Print Color = black or gray – whichever will be used most commonly
Print Width = as desired
Layout/Detail print widths = No Print or custom, as appropriate. If you want to turn a layer off in all details on a layout, use the layout override instead of the detail. It will allow you to turn off the layer in all details on that layout.
No overrides for layout or detail color, except where needed
Print Color = black or gray – whichever will be used most commonly
Print Width = No Print
Layout/Detail print widths = set override per-detail, as appropriate. Ensure that you set both Layout and Detail print width, setting one and not the other will have no effect. Set detail print width as desired, and set Layout print width to Default
No overrides for layout or detail color, except where needed
Print Width method works, but the built in Layer on in this Detail Only feature is easiest:
If you’re creating a new layer that is similar to others: consider duplicating an existing layer rather than creating new ones from scratch.
I’d almost given up on the standard Rhino methods of controlling detail visibility (Rhino 7 help), but then I discovered the two scripts on this Rhino forum (as of this writing, there are 2 scripts: one by egdivad and the other by Lahos). After a small amount of testing, it seems possible to use standard Rhino methods in conjunction with these scripts to make everything wonderful and easy as puppies and butterflies. I hope to update this post once I find out.
Edit 2022-08-04: the SafeLayout plugin is a higher performing version of the scripts mentioned above. I believe this plugin is written in C, and so is much faster than the Python scripts.
These other methods offer some additional control / potential, but I haven’t personally found them to be game changers in regards to this challenge:
The exhibit was in-progress when I finished my mural…more photos to come!
As of May 2021 I’m posting progress photos to instagram, and will be adding full-exhibit photos as they’re available…
Huge thank you to Marlene Chen and Alan Maskin of Olson Kundig for the opportunity to contribute, and to Elizabeth Friedrich of BADM and Alex Meyer for coordinating the install!
Mural design and install by Steven
Exhibit design by Olson Kundig
Project management by Alex Meyer of Meyer Technical
Exhibit Production and Install by Pacific Studios. Special thanks to Morgan Womble-Dahl for his implementation ideas.
Final thanks to Mark Sabatino & Gizmo Art Production for commissioning the little mural that inspire this big one!
Approximately 8×12 feet size, this mural depicts a few of the sculptures that Gizmo Art Production has built and installed in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Other fun stuff scattered throughout: a playful jab at the CEO’s music habit, Janis Joplin’s house, Miss Doubtfire’s house, 3 bikes, moustaches, a very prominent paintbrush, and grafitti by Barry McGee.
Medium: India Ink
Take a stack of exhibit ideas dreamt up by the Education staff, and turn them into an exhibit in one year, on a tight budget. The exhibit must be movable so that the exhibit hall can be used for large rental events.
Science & Main is one of the most popular exhibits at the Museum, and was achieved at a fraction of the cost of most other exhibits in the museum. See the captioned photos below for details and process photos…
View these projects in more detail:
The Drop Tower enables visitors to repeatably drop a racquetball 20 feet onto an angled surface. The angle and material of the surface can be changed, enabling users to experiment with the 2 variables and discover how they affect the trajectory and bounce height of the ball. The targets provide a goal for visitors to aim for, though many simply experiment on their own.
We built and tested several prototypes to determine whether or not our plans were visitor-friendly, the reliability of the ‘dropper’ mechanism, and the feasibility of the chain conveyor. See images below for more details…
Below are examples of construction drawings I created with Solidworks. They were given to a commercial welding company, who fabricated and delivered the pieces.
Design and build portable activities that demonstrate hydraulics in action
This dinosaur exhibit refurbishment consisted mainly of graphic work, with the exception of a fossil-replacement project.
The documentation on the 12-year-old exhibit was sparse, and the original builder would not return our calls, so we had to conduct experiments to determine the concrete formulas that would best match the existing concrete.
The structures could not be moved, so we built a dust containment structure and worked on the concrete in the gallery.
We cut out the old pieces using a large angle grinder, hammer drill, reciprocating saw, hammer, and cold chisel.
We supported the new pieces with concrete, and made future replacement easier by adding a layer of plastic between the new fossil and the concrete below. The fossils are secured by the concrete around the perimeter.
Above: a new fossil, ready for exploration