Pomegranate and form
I’m taking pomegranate as inspiration for my form course.
Pomegranates has been cultivated since ancient times, originating from somewhere between India and Iran to the Mediterranean. It has been a symbolic fruit for umpteen number of civilizations and cultures around the world. For the most part, it’s considered a symbol of fertility.
Now coming to the form of the pomegranate, it is a bulky thing formed by chambers full of separate units(seeds) held together inside a leathery thick outer covering.
I started by sketching different views of the pomegranate, sections, sections of sections. Throughout the sketches I noticed that the fruit looks like a rounded polygon from the top, it’s visible in the cross sections, and plain top views. That made me think that the form has got a slight geometric aspect to it. It’s kind of an odd shape, a combination of sphere and a hexagon(or pentagon, sometimes) with a calyx(the flower part) that is prominent, on one end. More geometry comes inside the form.
When opened, the fruit reveals a dense collection of seeds surrounded by a sweet edible pulp called aril, which is usually red or purple. Each seed is said to be a dodecahedron, made as an effort to pack as much volume possible inside, as that’s a shape taking up maximum space available in all three dimensions.
There are separate, non symmetrical chambers in which these seeds are arranged in a particular order, which are embedded without attachment to the mesocarp. All of the seeds in a pomegranate, usually varying from 200 to around 1400, is thus packed inside as clusters inside a single bulky outer covering.
From these observations, bulky, round, geometric, tough, clustered, unity are the main keywords or attributes I found associating with the form.
From this point, I made few 3d explorations of the form with wire and paper
When I made the first wire model I made, I tried to get the volume felt with less than a meter of wire. Then I tried to make the pattern inside when cut in half, the intersection, in 2d.
Then I went on doing more sketches of the pomegranate, in different views and cross sections, gradually reducing the form to parts, or representing with minimum number of lines.
From here, I tried reducing the lines in an attempt to convey the form with minimum number of lines. The first few explorations you see below, did work out. It gave a feel of the form with minimal to one single line. Towards the end, I tried bisecting the form to see what all I get. But it got too cluttered (even with one of the keywords being the same)
So I went on doing more iterations of the first exploration, making it more geometric by tightening the curves. But it was starting to move away from the rest of the keywords. And I ended up with the third one. It’s geometric, rounded and bulky and feels tough.
Moving on I tried cutting up the form in sections, to see which section gets the feel of the form right. Doing this exercise, I felt that the upper half of the pomegranate with the flower part gives an idea that yes, this feels similar to the form of a pomegranate.
NARA
You think candlelight is too old school, don’t you? Get yourself a NARA, mood lamps that gives your dining spaces an ambience boost. Now that’s a dinner you call perfecto.
Taking inspiration from pomegranate, the mood lamp that can be your next dining table essential. With individual bulbs that can be replaced this one is elegantly designed to last.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomegranate#Fruit,_sarcotesta_and_seeds
