“As the entrance of Plato Academy says : ‘LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER HERE!'” That is the first line on the page for PSS, the Parametric System Specialist. It is a fitting door for a programme we have never given its own PAZ Kaffi piece. The quote is the page’s own epigraph, not a history lesson, and it sets the order of things. Geometry comes first. Software comes second.

The next sentence on the page is a definition: “Parametric System Specialist is a way of life, understanding, analyzing and controlling geometry in all the levels.” Most parametric training sells a tool and hopes the thinking follows. According to the PSS page, it works the other way round. You learn to see a form as a set of relations, and Rhino and Grasshopper are how you get in.

A trilogy, one module at a time

The page calls PSS a trilogy and describes each part in its own words.

• Modul I, Components I (1 month): “parametric modelling with Rhino and Grasshopper. Everything about parametric design, analysis, animation and the pure beauty of geometry.”
• Modul II, Components II (2 months): “going deeper with components, complex solutions. More components, more interface.”
• Modul III, Components III (2 months): “we go deeper in data structures and complex problems to use the power of data.”

The page’s tone is unmistakably ours: “More fresh, more short, more fun -> it is really PUNK 🤘”. Under the punk there is a promise about time. Modul I is “manageable time-wise with your commitments (work, family, friends, etc.). You will need minimum 3 hours per week.” A working architect can fit three hours around a Wettbewerb deadline. Pretending otherwise would not be honest.

The instruments belong to other people, and they deserve to be named. Rhino is the work of Robert McNeel & Associates. As our PAZ-Rhino piece of 2 October reported, Grasshopper began as David Rutten’s work inside McNeel. Rutten’s decision was to make the canvas visual, so that a rule is something you wire rather than type. That is why a month of Modul I can reach “analysis, animation” at all. Behind every slider a student drags this spring sit years of McNeel developers and forum regulars answering questions in the open.

←TODAY: In 2026, most Swiss offices still redraw a stair or a louvre row by hand whenever one dimension changes.
→3012: From the late 2070s we remember that the offices that lasted were the ones that wrote down the rule behind a drawing, not only the drawing.
Fulcrum: A slider is just as useful in a 2026 Werkplan as it will be in 3012, and that is why learning it is worth one month now.

Atelier: In a 12-person studio, parametric know-how tends to sit with one colleague, and every design change waits until that person has time. Teaching geometry before tools spreads the reasoning across the team, because anyone can name what drives a form even if they have never opened a canvas. Monday move: add a standing rule to the project template. Every repeated element (stairs, louvres, railings) gets one line in the project folder listing the dimensions that drive it.

Hack: Build a stair profile from three numbers so that one change redraws the whole run. In a GhPython component inside Grasshopper, add inputs R (rise), G (going) and N (number of steps), wire a number slider to each, and paste the code below. Each step adds one vertical riser point and one horizontal tread point. The final slice drops the extra riser at the top landing. Drag R and watch every tread follow.

import Rhino.Geometry as rg
pts = [rg.Point3d(i*G, 0, z) for i in range(int(N)+1) for z in (i*R, (i+1)*R)]
a = rg.Polyline(pts[:-1]).ToNurbsCurve()

Logistics, in two lines

The workshops page lists PSS under “HAUPTKURS – FÜR GROSSEN HUNGER”, with Modul I starting on 1 March 2027, and the PSS page describes it as online with PAZ personal accompaniment from PAZ Central at Niederdorfstrasse 77 in Zurich. Registration is not yet open in the shop. Until it opens, the Free-Le@rn page offers a weekly email in three sections (Learn, Discover and Imagine), and PAZ Central answers on +41 44 243 6216.

Pencil 1 March 2027 into your calendar today. Then go back to a drawing from last month and ask which three numbers it was really made of.