Plug-in Parasite

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The code in this repository is open-source under the MIT License. Fork it, run it, build on it. (Design assets, images and CAD models are CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — see License.)

A parasitic, telescopic mast-tent — a portable shading/shelter structure that clamps onto urban street bollards or is staked into the ground. Folded, it is hand-carried. Deployed, it resembles a small ship's mast with two inverted-cone fabric canopies and a top sail.

This is a real, open, in-development design — not a finished product and not a render exercise. The concept and a physical maquette were made in a single night, then driven straight into a parametric model. It went through a full modelling-stack migration (Fusion 360 → Rhino 8 + Grasshopper) as the geometry logic matured, and the deployment film was curated down from ~40 AI video takes. We genuinely intend to build it — the socket, the telescopic mast, the whole thing — and the repository is shared in that spirit: to show the reasoning that got here, and to invite feedback, forks and manufacturing collaboration. Everything here is meant to keep evolving.

Authors / Context — Creative Computational Architecture · Caglar Celik Architects (CCA). Concept and physical maquette developed 2026-05-16; parametric model built the same night with Claude as AI pair-modeller. Migrated to Rhino/Grasshopper 2026-05-17. Cinematic films generated with Seedance 2.0 / Kling 3.0. See Tools & Credits.

"Redefining space through computation." — a design praxis studio working across analysis, mathematics, art, geometry, philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and technology.

📷 Instagram @caglarcelikarchitects · caglarcelik.works

Parametric System (Grasshopper)

The heart of this project is not the renders — it is the parametric definition. The whole structure is generated by a Grasshopper graph: a set of grouped sliders feed one Python 3 build component that emits six geometry sets. Change a slider, the whole shelter regenerates.

12 sliders (5 logical groups)                    →   build (Python 3)   →   6 geometry outputs
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
MAST   : mast_h, socket_h                                                    mast    (3 telescopic tubes)
SPAR   : hub_z, spar_len, spar_angle, spar_dia                               socket  (bollard sleeve)
RING   : ring_count, rope_dia                                                hub     (spar clamp)
PANEL  : panel_z, panel_L, panel_W, panel_t                                  spars   (4 × swept up-and-out)
FOLD   : fold (0 = packed → 1 = deployed)                                    rings   (rope storage cage)
                                                                             panel   (diamond solar panel)

Logical groups — MAST / SPAR / RING / PANEL / FOLD, colour-coded on the canvas.	One build component — every slider wires into a single Python 3 script that returns the whole assembly.

Why it's built this way (the reasoning that got here):

• One driver, one script. Rather than a sprawling web of native components, the geometry lives in a single readable Python 3 build script. The canvas stays legible; the algorithm carries the complexity. The per-stage logic is broken out for reference in cinematic/scripts/components/ — mast, hook, hub, spars, fabric hammock, panel canopy, storage rings, rigging ropes, carry strap.
• A single fold parameter collapses the whole thing. fold (0 → 1) is the deployment state: at 0 everything is packed inside the socket; at 1 it is the full 2.3 m rig. This is what makes it a deployable structure and not just a static model.
• The design changed as the model matured — and the model shows it. Two V1 ideas were deliberately replaced in V2, driven by the parametric work itself:
  • the rigid upper fabric canopy → a diamond solar panel (with a boolean-diff Ø30 mm mast hole);
  • the single-perimeter diamond storage frame → a multi-ring "Chinese-lantern" cage (ring_count, 1–12).
• Edited programmatically. The Grasshopper graph is driven by code through Cordyceps, a Rhino 8 automation bridge — parametric edits are made programmatically, not by hand-dragging wires. This is the studio's tell: architecture built like software.

Open PlugInParasite.gh in Rhino 8 Grasshopper to drive it live. PlugInParasite.3dm is the companion Rhino document.

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One parameter, fold, drives the entire structure from packed to deployed: 0.00 CLOSED → 0.25 TELESCOPE → 0.50 STICK → 0.75 CANOPY → 1.00 DEPLOYED.

The same states, rendered — the wireframe above is not a drawing of an idea, it is the actual model output; below, the identical geometry with materials:

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Deployment

Hand-carried and compact → telescoped up by hand → hooked over a limb or plugged onto a bollard → canopy opened. One fold parameter drives the whole transition (see above).

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Concept

The structure is designed around three states:

1. Folded — diamond-shaped, mast collapsed inside the socket, fabrics packed around the core. Hand-bag scale. (the fold=0 state)
2. Plugged onto a bollard — the open base sleeve is dropped over a Ø80–100 mm street bollard, then the mast is telescoped upward and the canopies open. Urban parking mode.
3. Staked into ground — a pointed adapter screws into the base sleeve and is driven into soil. Camping mode.

The signature form is a stack of two inverted cones ("martini glass"): the lower wide canopy throws ground-level shade; the upper tier (now a solar panel) echoes a square-rigged ship's topsail. A small rectangular topsail and a pennant cap the rig.

The inhabited state, annotated: hammock slung between the four spars, canopy above, telescopic pole, ground socket.

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Components (Deployed)

Bottom-up, as generated by the Grasshopper build script:

#	Component	Driven by	Description
1	Socket	socket_h	Two-bore sleeve: lower bore grips a Ø90 mm bollard, upper bore accepts the bottom mast segment.
2	Mast	mast_h	3 telescopic aluminium tubes, OD Ø32 → Ø25 → Ø19 mm, 80 mm overlap per joint, fully extended 2.2 m.
3	Hub	hub_z	Single clamp hub on the mast that carries the four spars.
4	Spars	spar_len, spar_angle, spar_dia	Four rods springing up and out; tip reach sets the canopy footprint.
5	Rings	ring_count, rope_dia	1–12 horizontal rope loops between adjacent spar tips — the "Chinese-lantern" storage cage.
6	Panel	panel_z, panel_L/W/t	Diamond solar panel with a boolean-diff Ø30 mm mast hole — replaced the V1 rigid upper canopy.

Total deployed height ≈ 2.3 m. Folded target ≈ 0.7 m × 0.4 m × 0.15 m (hand-carry).

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Reference Material

The design started physical: a bamboo-and-thread maquette and a whiteboard full of iterations, the same night as the first model.

Physical maquette — bamboo skewers, thread rigging, tissue-paper fabric.	Side view showing both canopies and the topsail.
Concept sketches: "Mobilized parasitic tent-like structure".	Full whiteboard with all the iterations.
Folded "diamond shape" state, with storage at the core.	Telescopic detail and rigging plan.
"Handbag → getting taller → parasite on urban elements / camping".

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Films

AI-cinematic shorts of the deployment sequence, built from the parametric model as reference imagery (image-to-video). These are the curated survivors of ~40 generations across Seedance 2.0 and Kling 3.0 — the shot list, prompts and edit pipeline are in cinematic/docs/. Click to play on GitHub.

The process reel, playing inline — renders → parametric Grasshopper canvas → illustrated storyboard. Click it for the full-quality MP4 with sound.

File	What it shows
films/PlugInParasite_process_reel.mp4	The process reel — renders → parametric Grasshopper canvas → illustrated storyboard, in 20 seconds
films/PlugInParasite_deployment_FINAL_9x16.mp4	Master cut — full deployment story, vertical 9:16
films/PlugInParasite_deployment_BLACK_v2_smooth_9x16.mp4	Black carbon-fibre variant, smoothed master
films/PlugInParasite_WHITEFOAM_9x16.mp4	White-foam architectural maquette style
films/PlugInParasite_COVER_1960s_anim.mp4	Animated 1960s-style illustrated cover
films/PlugInParasite_annotated_walkthrough.mp4	Annotated 3D component walkthrough — hook, panel, hammock, socket + telescopic mast (Turkish captions)
clips/	Individual shots: CARRY → SETDOWN → EXTEND → HOOK → OPEN → INHABIT → POV → FINALE

Presentation pages

The same story told across six media — cover illustration, photoreal film still, paper-craft maquette, product states, annotated scene, and the physical maquette on the whiteboard wall. Auto-advancing; stills in images/deck/.

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Renders & Drawings

Secondary to the parametric system, but included for reference: Fusion viewport captures and generated technical drawings (section 1:20, deployment sheet, branch detail — SVG/PNG/DXF plus the Python generators that draw them, in cinematic/drawings/).

Front	Iso	Right

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Parameters (reference values)

Current slider ranges and defaults on the Grasshopper canvas:

Group	Slider	Range	Default
MAST	mast_h	100–400	220
MAST	socket_h	5–30	15
SPAR	hub_z	20–150	20
SPAR	spar_len	30–200	90
SPAR	spar_angle	0–75°	36.5
SPAR	spar_dia	0.2–2	1.45
RING	ring_count	1–12	6
RING	rope_dia	0.05–1	0.22
PANEL	panel_z	80–220	148.6
PANEL	panel_L	10–80	54
PANEL	panel_W	10–60	40
PANEL	panel_t	0.2–5	0.86
FOLD	fold	0–1	1

The Fusion V1 model exposes a larger set of 36 user parameters (mast tube diameters, wall thicknesses, sail rig, catenary rigging sag, etc.) — see cinematic/docs/GEOMETRY_SPEC.md and build_fusion_model.py.

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Files

Path	Purpose
PlugInParasite.gh	Live parametric system — Grasshopper definition (open in Rhino 8)
PlugInParasite.3dm	Companion Rhino 8 document
PlugInParasite.f3d	Archival — Fusion 360 V1 (36 parameters)
PlugInParasite.step	Cross-CAD STEP export (Rhino, SolidWorks, FreeCAD, …)
build_fusion_model.py	Standalone Fusion script that recreates the V1 model from scratch
grasshopper/	Canvas screenshots of the parametric definition
cinematic/scripts/	Per-stage GHPython component logic (the fold/deploy rig)
cinematic/films/, clips/, concept_boards/	Cinematic shorts, individual shots, AI concept boards
cinematic/drawings/	Technical drawings (SVG/PNG/DXF) + Python generators
cinematic/docs/	Geometry spec, storyboard, AI shot prompts, edit pipeline
render_*.png, final_filmstrip.png	Fusion viewport captures
images/	Source sketches + maquette photographs

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Reproducing the Model

Grasshopper (live): open PlugInParasite.gh in Rhino 8, adjust any slider, geometry regenerates through the build component.

Fusion V1 (from scratch):

1. Fusion 360 → File ▸ New Design.
2. Utilities ▸ ADD-INS ▸ Scripts and Add-Ins (Shift+S).
3. Scripts tab → + → browse to build_fusion_model.py → Run.
4. The full model — parameters, all components, all bodies — appears in a few seconds.

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Roadmap (open — contributions welcome)

• V2 — Folded state polish. Verify the fold=0 packed configuration reads as a clean hand-carry volume.
• Grasshopper migration. ✅ done — live parametric source of truth.
• Cinematic film. ✅ done — see Films.
• V2 — Upper rigging & fabric drape. Port the sail rig and lower-canopy fabric from the Fusion V1 into the Grasshopper script.
• V3 — Cloth simulation. Replace rigid loft surfaces with a draped cloth sim (Marvelous Designer / Houdini → back into GH).
• V3 — FEA on socket. Clamp force on the bollard and lateral stiffness under wind load.
• Prototype (the real goal). CNC-mill the aluminium socket and hubs; 3D-print hub clamp jaws; source carbon rod and rip-stop fabric; build and test a physical unit.

If you want to help make it real — manufacturing, materials, FEA, or just ideas — open an issue.

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Tools & Credits

Built with — and credit to — the following:

Tool	Role
Rhino 8 + Grasshopper	Parametric geometry engine — the live model
Cordyceps	Rhino 8 automation bridge — programmatic Grasshopper editing
Autodesk Fusion 360	V1 solid model (36 parameters)
Claude / Claude Code (Anthropic)	AI pair-modeller — Python build logic, drawing generators, docs
Higgsfield	AI video generation platform
Seedance 2.0 · Kling 3.0	Image-to-video models for the cinematic shots
Python 3 · ffmpeg	Geometry scripts and film edit pipeline

Physical maquette, concept and design direction: Caglar Celik Architects.

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License

    

• Code (Python scripts, Grasshopper definition): MIT.
• Design, images, videos and CAD models: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — share and adapt with attribution, non-commercial. For commercial use or manufacturing, contact the studio.

© 2026 Creative Computational Architecture — Caglar Celik Architects (CCA)