Launch of ‘Visual Thinking’: Five Books on Art and Geometry

“Visual Thinking, Seeing Through Time” is a five-book odyssey through the human experience in Architecture, the Arts, and Geometry from the dawn of consciousness to the frontiers of artificial intelligence.

Altair Designs and Jules Bourgoin. Bridges MathArt 2025.

Jules Bourgoin was a master of Early Islamic visual logic.

The Story of Visual Thinking—Geometry, Architecture, and the Arts. AI Audio Review.

An AI-generated 30 minute audio review of my latest book.

Girih Tiles & The Gunbad-i Qabud Tomb

Girih Tiles on the

Presentations & Workshops

PRESENTATIONS WORKSHOPS

SHAPE CHANGING POLYHEDRA

“3D Thinking” Page 238: Shape Changing Polyhedra The original idea for shape changing polyhedra came from studying muqarnas and playing with children’s building blocks. The featured image is of the Nasir al-Mulk Mosque Muqarnas in Shiraz, Iran. The building blocks were as in the photo:  An introduction to the logic of this geometry can be seen in […]

A Geometry of Early Islam – Nesting Polygons

“3D Thinking” Page 190, 191: There are a number of Islamic design methodologies of which the “Nesting Polygon” method is one. The method places an arrangement of polygons within a polygon and continues infinitely placing the same but scaled arrangement within each polygon as it appears. The method was used to generate a lattice from […]

A Geometry of Early Islam – ABJAD, Circles and a Door

“3D Thinking” Pages 175 to 177 Islamic Geometry: This Seljuk period door dates from 13th-century Anatolia and stands as a possible example of a use of numeric values to communicate a message. The door’s design is based the Islamic “close-packing circle” method of design – in this case an arrangement of close-packing circles within a pentagon. The two primary numbers […]

A Geometry of Early Islam – The Dynamic Circle Method

“3D Thinking” Pages 187, 274: Using close-packing circles to create surface designs, during the early years of Islam, requires a method to generate different close-packing circle arrangements. The dynamic sphere geometry provides such a method. Applying the geometry, starting with a 5-circle arrangement within the unit triangle of a square, generates many arrangements including the […]

A Geometry of Early Islam – The Circle Method and a Window

“3D Thinking” Page 187: The animation below shows the Arabian “close-packing” circle method that was used to create the window design of the 1356CE Madrasa of Amir Salf al-din Sargatmish in Old Cairo, Egypt. The design method dates back to the Abbasid period – a time of great creativity. The development starts with (i) a […]