Once we were well versed with the structures of the five Platonic solids, we went on to make them into a matrix; integrating one into the other. I made this structure out of chip board and that was one of the limitations that didn’t make them fit into each other. As we learned, we can only get as close to perfect in the matrix but its not possible in the reality due to limitations and assumptions. Here the limitation was the material thickness, in fact this matrix is simply an ideal form.
I started this by first learning how to draw the nets of these shapes. These shapes as complicated as they look could all be made on the flower of life. The flower of life is a geometrical shape composed of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles arranged in a flower like pattern with six fold symmetry like a hexagon. The flower of life symbol represents important meaning to many throughout history. This could simply me made with a ruler and compass.
Flower of life:
Then I made the closed and open-faced outlines of these shapes on tracing paper (over the flower of life) for practice and understanding the dimensions. Each of the shapes represent some meaning.
Octahedron: Air and Yellow
Tetrahedron: Fire and Red
Hexahedron: Earth and Green
Dodecahedron: Elan Vital, Consciousness, Cosmos, God and Purple
Icosahedron: Flow and Blue
Star Tetrahedron: Fire and Red (intersection of two tetrahedrons)
Following the drawings, I learned how to make the closed and open nets in order to get these into a 3D forms. I did this on chipboard so they would be sturdy.
The closed nets were simply for practice and to visualize the arrangement:
I, then, cut out the open-faced nets and painted them their respective colors. I had to take into consideration the material thickness and make the drawings slightly bigger so they could all fit in together. I layered them one inside the other and used clear tape to connect the outer layer. This was the process step by step:
