Archimedean solid

Whilst on a recent trip to Haifa, in the on the north-western coast of Israel, I observed a building out of the window of the train which had a rather intriguing shape protruding from the main building itself. I later discovered that it was The National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).

I thought this would be a fantastic shape for some sort of microphone so I decided to do further research into this shape and to my suprise, discovered that this shape had been illustrated by Leonardo Da Vinci who named it rhombicuboctahedron and the following image is from the Divina Proportione (written in Milan in 1496–98, published in Venice in 1509).
There is a really in-depth wikipedia page dedicated to Archimedean Solids, to which this this shape, officially called a Rhombicuboctahedron, belongs. The following shape is a net which I used as the basis for making a drawing on rhino from which I could then cut a metal shape to form a very accurate 3D model.

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The Philips Pavilion

Brussels World’s Fair, 1958

In 1956, the artistic director of the Philips company, Louis C. Kalff, asked Le Corbusier to design a pavilion that would embody and demonstrate the excellence of the company’s products for the benefit of visitors to the Brussels World’s Fair. Le Corbusier agreed, proposing a “bottle” that would house a light, colour, image, rhythm and sound show that Le Corbusier called an “electronic poem”. Poème électronique was the title of the musical score commissioned from avant-garde composer Edgar Varèse specifically for use in the Pavilion.

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