The Foster + Partners Applied R+D team has developed Cyclops, a free, bespoke design plugin for Grasshopper in Rhino, which is available to everyone. Cyclops seamlessly integrates into existing workflows and turbocharges ray tracing simulations that are fundamental for environmental analyses. The plugin provides analytical feedback to designers in real-time, facilitating better-informed decision making earlier in the design process, without third-party involvement.
Martha Tsigkari, Senior Partner and Head of Applied R+D, Foster + Partners, said: “Cyclops is the latest iteration of a tool that we have been extensively developing, refining, and actively using on projects, over the past fifteen years. During this time, we have experimented with different technologies and user interfaces, allowing designers to run environmental analyses that used to take hours, or even days, in a matter of seconds. We believe that Cyclops will play an important role in supporting positive change within the architectural and engineering industry – enhancing sustainability across a wide range of global projects.”
Cyclops has been developed with the objective of integrating real-time analyses into the design process, addressing the longstanding challenge of time-consuming analytical cycles and interoperability issues in construction-related digitisation. The plugin leverages GPU computing provided by NVIDIA graphics cards, enabling computations thousands of times faster than commercially available software. Users can run analytical processes, such as annual radiation, in real-time and at a city scale.
The development of Cyclops is driven by Foster + Partners’ commitment to sustainability. It is being released as a free plugin to encourage widespread adoption and the integration of more sustainable design practices across the industry. Cyclops also enhances the professional development of junior designers, by allowing them to rapidly gauge the performance of their designs in real time. In doing so, they will quickly begin to develop an intuition for what makes a building or masterplan perform better.
Cyclops recently won CIBSE's ‘Best Digital Innovation’ award, which recognises and celebrates innovations that have made a significant contribution to digital engineering. The judges commended Foster + Partners’ “foresight in driving software development internally rather than waiting for the market to catch up with its level of innovation,” and said, “Cyclops could create a seismic shift in the way software is used."
