Exploring Fractal Patterns
Humans are visual thinkers. We process images much more quickly than we do sound or text. Half of our brain is directly or indirectly involved in processing visual information which gives us the natural ability to quickly recognize patterns in the world around us. Research has shown that humans display a consistent aesthetic preference for fractal patterns, regardless of whether they are generated by nature, computer, or by the human hand.
This article defines fractals as objects in which the same patterns occur again and again at different scales and sizes. In a perfect mathematical fractal , the pattern repeats infinitely: each pattern is made up of smaller copies of itself, and those smaller copies are made up of smaller copies again, forever.
When you’re staring at nature, you’re looking at fractal patterns. Fractals are all around us and present in plants, snowflakes, geological structures, and ice crystals, but the impact of these patterns on the human experience is surprisingly powerful.
In the 1980s, architects found that patients in the hospital recovered more quickly from surgery when they had rooms with windows looking out on nature. Other studies have explored how just looking at pictures of natural scenes can change the way our nervous systems respond to stress.
Through evolution, our visual systems have adapted to process these patterns with ease. This is fractal fluency. When Richard Taylor, a physicist at the University of Oregon, used an eye-tracking machine to measure where people’s pupils were focusing on projected images, he found that the pupils used a search pattern that was itself fractal.
Our connection to fractal patterns is something magical and we’ve seen artists and designers using these patterns in their work throughout the centuries. I’m certainly interested in further exploring fractals’ influence on the human experience, but for now, here are a few examples of fractal product designs:
1) Diffusion Vessels by David Sutton
Diffusion Vessels are a series of bowls designed by digitally recreating the fractal growth patterns of natural phenomena such as lightning and snowflakes.
These vessels are formed through a process called Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA) which has been modeled and constrained within a virtual environment. DLA is usually studied as an example of fractal growth processes such as branching, lightning, snowflakes, mineral deposits and coral.
2) Fractal Table by Platform Wertel Oberfell
the Fractal Table by Platform Wertel Oberfell has legs that resemble tree trunks that divide over and over again until they’re dense enough to form a patterned surface.
3) Cellscreen by Korban/Flaubert
Made of anodized aluminum, this room screen by Korban/Flaubert takes its inspiration from the fractal shapes of honeycomb.
sources
