Author: Main Maker

Star Ornament, lead glass. Contributed by Studio Infinity. [80 F, 120 E, 42 V] This Swarovski crystal shows how polyhedral forms often show up in decorative and ornamental roles. In the geometric name of this shape, the phrase pentagonally elevated means that pentagonal pyramids have been attached to every five-sided face of an underlying icosidodecahedron.

Untitled, cherry and maple wood. Contributed by Glen Whitney. [48 F, 120 E, 74 V] This polyhedral take-apart puzzle is based on the same geometry as the Tetraxis ™ reconfigurable sculpture by Jane and John Kostick, but cuts the underlying equilateral triangular prisms along different planes to produce hexagonal and rhombic faces rather than triangular…

Note block, paper and plastic. Contributed by Glen Whitney. [12 F, 30 E, 20 V] This item departs from the norms of the show: it is not an art piece and it was not specifically produced to be a part of Polyplane. Rather, this consumer product shows the degree to which polyhedral forms have seeped…

Untitled, folded paper [32 F, 90 E, 60V] This shape corresponds to the usual system of panels used to make a soccer ball, with every face either a pentagon or hexagon. One result of Euler’s Polyhedron Formula is that every polyhedron that has only pentagonal and hexagonal sides must have exactly twelve pentagons. Can you…

Untitled, cardstock and glue. Contributed by Thomas Sibley. [180 F, 270 E, 92 V] The producers of Polyplane are honored to include work of the renowned Father Magnus Wenninger (1919-2017). Fr. Magnus, a Benedictine monk, broke new ground by constructing physical realizations of all 75 uniform polyhedra, including many challenging self-intersecting shapes. He went on…

Boxycomb, laser-cut fiberboard and glue [44 F, 88 E, 46 V] Copies of the rhombic dodecahedron (the Catalan solid dual to the cuboctahedron) fill space without gaps or overlaps, as illustrated by this cluster of five rhombic dodecahedral custom-cut cardboard boxes.

Metahedron, 3D-printed polylactic acid plastic [60 F, 120 E, 62 V] This construction celebrates how some polyhedra can be connected face-to-face to create larger structures, including the frameworks of other polyhedra. In this case, tiny regular dodecahedra are used to create the 62 vertices and 120 edges of this star-shaped polyhedron, first described mathematically in…

Untitled, injection-molded plastic. Contributed by Studio Infinity. [107 F, 210 E, 105 V] Start with an icosidodecahedron, one of the Archimedean solids. (Its faces are shown in blue in this model). Succesively “stretch” or elongate it in five different directions, interpolating parallelograms (some of which are rectangles) along a belt or “zone” each time it…