The Historical Origin of the Octagon: Cultural Symbols Across Time and Space

Since ancient times, the octagon has appeared in different corners of human civilization with its mysterious and elegant posture. It plays an important role in the design of everything from ancient oriental temples to medieval European churches to modern city squares. This shape is not only a symbol of beauty, but also contains a profound spiritual meaning.

In traditional Chinese culture, the "eight diagrams" are drawn based on regular octagons, representing the laws of change in heaven and earth; Islamic mosques often use star-shaped domes, and their centers are often presented as octagonal cones, implying the path from the center of the universe to heaven. There are also many examples of Western Christian buildings that use similar elements. For example, the spire on the outer wall of the Milan Cathedral stands on the clouds in the form of an octagonal prism.

It can be seen that no matter which nationality or belief system people have chosen this special polyhedron as one of the ways to express their thoughts and feelings. Through these specific cases, we can see that the octagon has long gone beyond the simple material form to become a bridge connecting ancient and modern Chinese and foreign cultures.

The Soul of Architectural Design: Octagon Gives New Dimension to Space

In recent years, driven by the trend of pursuing individualization and differentiation, more and more architects have begun to pay attention to the possibility of non-rectangular layout. One of the most typical representatives of those originality to introduce the octagonal unit module works. They create a refreshing visual effect by virtue of their own unique proportional relationship, and can effectively improve the problems existing in the original site conditions.

For example, a kindergarten called "Hikari" in Kizukawa, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, uses a fully open courtyard with surrounding classrooms. The whole campus is planned into a number of small courtyard groups of different sizes but connected to each other, and each independent unit is a standard regular octagonal room. This not only ensures that children have enough places to run and play freely, but also reduces noise interference to a certain extent to create a quiet and warm learning and living environment.

In addition, there are many public facilities that also favor the use of such a concept to achieve the goal of defining functional partitions. The Saudi Arabia Pavilion, which was exhibited during the Shanghai World Expo, is a good example-the main body of the pavilion is composed of numerous three-dimensional grid-like structures of the same size and specifications but staggered with each other. From a distance, it looks like a huge beehive suspended in the air!

Home decoration new darling: octagon leading fashion trend

With the continuous improvement of people's living standards and the gradual change of aesthetic concepts, the traditional square lattice style has been unable to fully satisfy the curiosity of contemporary young people about new things. As a result, a number of ingenious design concepts have emerged, and many of them are highly sought after.

Nowadays, all kinds of octagonal lighting, mirrors and vases can be seen everywhere in the market. This kind of single product usually leaves a simple atmosphere without losing the delicate and delicate impression, especially suitable for matching modern simple or Nordic style type of room dress style. More importantly, because they break the sense of restraint brought by the regular mindset, they can highlight the unique characteristics of the owner's taste.

Not only that, even some well-known furniture brands have begun to set foot in this field to launch a joint series of product lines. For example, a considerable part of the new series launched by IKEA in recent years are conceived and created around this theme, which is not only novel and strange in appearance but also affordable, which is welcomed by the majority of consumers.

The Beauty of Mathematics Meets the Real World: Revealing the Scientific Principles of the Octagon

In fact, it is not a coincidence that many objects in nature appear to be similar to octagons, but the result of following certain internal laws. After long-term observation, scientists have found that some mineral crystals (such as pyrite), plant cell wall slices and even insect compound eye structures have similar characteristics.

The fundamental reason is mainly because in this case, the energy consumption is the lowest and the most likely to form a stable equilibrium state. In other words, when the system is near the optimal solution, it will naturally tend to take this approach to self-organization construction. This is precisely why engineers and technicians are always willing to learn from the wisdom of the biological world and apply it to various engineering projects.

To give a simple example, the reason why the profile of the wing section of an aircraft changes in a streamlined curve rather than a straight line is because the latter will increase air resistance and reduce flight efficiency. The same principle applies to many other occasions, such as the car body shell design will try to imitate the appearance of water droplets in order to reduce the drag coefficient during driving to achieve the purpose of energy saving and environmental protection.

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