The Origin of Form is a 2026 Senior Project that traces how the three most basic geometric shapes: circle, triangle, and square. Evolve into 3D volumes called Geons, and how those Geons construct everything around us: letters, objects, buildings, and the entire built world.
The origin
of form
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Role: Researcher · Visual Designer · Interactive Developer
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Tools: Illustrator, After Effects, Three.js, Laser Cutter
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Timeline: 2026 Otis College Senior Project
Where do the complex forms that make up our world originate? Begins with the purest and most fundamental geometric shapes (circles, triangles, and squares) echoing how we intuitively perceived and drew the world as children.
This project traces the step-by-step journey of how these minimal 2D units evolve into 3D volumes (Geons), and how they further construct our vast world through underlying structural rules, spanning language, objects, and the built environment.
By establishing a rigorous system that strips away unnecessary decoration to reveal only the pure structural skeleton, this project offers the audience a completely new perspective on their surroundings.
Ultimately, it poses a fundamental question: doesn't the essence of all design we encounter ultimately begin with basic geometry?
1. Interactive Website: Participative experience for making shapes from a geon to our world.
Built with Three.js, an interactive 3D experience where users can explore how basic shapes evolve into geons and construct the world. Users swipe to interact with real-time 3D geometry.
Built with Three.js + MediaPipe hand tracking. Use your webcam to navigate, swipe left or right to watch 2D shapes evolve into 3D geons and construct the world around us.
2. Geon Dictionary: Can understand what is geons and 4 different geon groups.
Developed a taxonomy of 36 Geons across 4 groups — organized by axis type (straight/curved) and cross-section (round/angular). Each geon is derived purely from 2D geometric primitives.
3. Video essay - invite audience to project
A short film that invites the audience into the project, filming real-world structures at Otis College and around Los Angeles to show where basic shapes appear in the built environment.
4. Acrylic Installation: Two different perspective camera views from basic shapes.
A physical laser-cut acrylic installation presenting two camera perspectives of the same geon structure, asking viewers to question how form changes based on viewpoint.
5. Alpbet Pattern Postcards
A series of 26 printed postcards, each letter reconstructed through its underlying geon structure. Currently in production: printed and delivered to the Otis College community.
6. Exhibition Picture
2026 May Otis grad show
