Luke Dempsey, 638407, Module 1

Module 1: Ideation Luke Dempsey

638407 ENVS10008 12/3/2013

Coral Pattern

Tooling

Patterns In Nature - Coral Interesting patterns can be found everywhere in nature, the following is an analysis of coral. I find that, this species in particular, that coral has strong patterns from which primitive shapes can be easily recognised.

Symmetry Every ‘cell’ on the surface of the coral can be simplified to intersecting circles. Apart from the little grooves on the surface of the ‘cells’ having rotational symmetry, the cells themselves are also symmetrical in how they intersect with each other.

Balance An aesthetically pleasing pattern needs good balance. A basic outline of the ‘cells’ of the coral shows that over the whole area of the pattern, balance is still maintained.

Movement Every ‘cell’ on the surface of the coral can be simplified to intersecting circles. Apart from the little grooves on the surface of the ‘cells’ having rotational symmetry, the cells themselves are also symmetrical in how they intersect with each other.

Readings Patterns In Nature - Coral Kandinsky developed a process involving 3 stages to simplify and explore the structural relationships within objects. In his particular Bauhaus classes, these were “discreet, silent, almost insignificant objects” as they had no external expression, the painter then had to find the the “transitional link between [the] still life and the abstract, through the medium of geometry”. (In Kandinsky’s Teaching.., Poling Clark, 1987) Kandinsky investigated and simplified the form of mainly still life arrangements in his teachings, however his methods can be applied to other arrangements of objects such as, in our case, patterns in nature.

Kandinsky had three main steps to deconstructing the underlying geometry of arrangements: 1.

To reduce the whole image into one simple form that are individual primitive shapes but also interact with others to make up the whole picture.

2.

To reveal the tensions found in the primitive and simplistic structure, with emphasis in the form of line thickness.

3.

Create an overall structure where all tensions and forces are considered, the resulting image should be a combination of lines describing individual tensions and yet achieve an overall aesthetic balance.

These three steps were considered when creating the recipe for my pattern. By simplifying the overall pattern into basic primitive shapes and lines, the deconstruction of how the pattern was made became much easier. This particular pattern used a combination of only points, lines and circles.

Patterns are generally the repetition of shapes that tessell∆te - drawing on tooling, it was found that this particular pattern incorporates the use packing to construct an overall image.

Pattern Recipe - Take a set of points - Draw a circle around one point, where the radius is larger than half the distance, but less than the whole distance, between itself and neighboring points.

- Repeat for each point in the set.

- Where neighboring circles intersect, draw a line joining the two intersections.

- Repeat for all circle intersections.

Rhino 5 Modelling:

2 Rail Sweep 1 Rail Sweep

2 Rail Sweep, Capping & Boolean Union

Pipe, Boolean Union and Subtract