#concentric shapes

[paulfc]

Concentric Shapes V.  

‘Balance IV: Shutters’

This piece is concentric squares as the previous one was but the hinging is alternated side to side rather than pivoting in the centre and then rotating 90 degrees. This results similarly in a kinetic structure but with less degrees of freedom.  

It is possible to arrange the shutter pieces such that it will stand on one edge so it is still part of the Balance series.

On a technical note I decided that it was almost as easy, and certainly safer, to use a surform tool to round off the edges rather than a router.  The surform doesn’t throw the shavings everywhere either. 

The edges of the pieces need to be shaped so that they can rotate in the space available.

[paulfc]

Concentric Shapes III.  

‘Balance II:  Can you close the shutters dear?’

I was so taken by the numbers of possibilities for the rearrangement of concentric shapes while putting the previous piece together from concentric squares that I decided to make a second squares piece.  Similarly to the first, this one also balances on the only non-paired square.  

Sadly the shutters do not actually close so the answer to the question in the title is ‘No.’  It would be possible to make it such that they did but it would be a lot more work and since I am lazy my excuse is that it would totally change the nature of the piece.

[paulfc]

Concentric Shapes II.  ‘Balance’

Second in a small series of objects made from the rearrangement of concentric cuts from a piece of plywood this being the square.  The first in the series being made from equilateral triangles, the ‘Trianglist Tree’.

It is interesting when you start to rearrange concentric shapes the first thing that comes to my mind is rotation and of course being a bit linear as I am, the angles of rotation between each layer is usually the same and the layers increment in size linearly.  In this case however I have settled on translation across and down for the increasing size layer and across and up for the decreasing layer.

The title ‘Balance’ comes from the fact that most elements of the structure are paired with the central square being the only singleton, the centre of gravity is within this square and so the object is finely balanced, minimally disturbed and it falls.