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Mathematicians define new class of shape seen throughout nature
‘Soft cells’ — shapes with rounded corners and pointed tips that fit together on a plane — feature in onions, molluscs and more.
Domokos and colleagues devised an algorithm for smoothly converting geometric tiles — either 2D polygons or 3D polyhedra, like the bubbles of a foam — into soft cells, and explored the range of possible shapes these rules permit. Domokos and colleagues think that architects such as Zaha Hadid have long used soft cells intuitively to avoid or minimize corners, either for aesthetic or structural reasons. Since completing the paper, Domokos and co-author Alain Goriely of the University of Oxford, UK, have collaborated with architects at the California College of Arts in San Fransisco, who devised an award-winning structure using soft-cell elements made — appropriately — from eggshells.
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