Tessellated Manifolds

Historically speaking, Islamic architecture is sometimes a lost art. The muqarnas is one such building construction type. Its simple and pure geometries form breathtaking and complex architecture as an aggregation of plane to surface. This transformation from 2-D to 3-D is where this studio finds its footing. Using digital technology as an experimental tool, we seek to better understand the strengths of the muqarnas, both as an aesthetic and structural derivative of tectonic strategy. We created an opportunity to re-interpret a uniquely historical building type through a digital lens. This particular approach is focused on recognizing the elegance of scale, proportion, texture, and aperture as inherent surface qualities as they aggregate into a complex whole. The ideation of surface texture is just one of many facets of muqarnas architecture. It is our goal to explore the inherent quality of such conditions as they relate to a particular site at Washington University in St. Louis.