Designing the myriorama.

The idea is to create an array of blocks which can be rotated and placed in any order to create different landscapes. 
I deliberately exaggerated the undulation of the landscape in the 4 puzzle pieces I made below. It’s a terrain most unsuited to build on and gives the whole thing a poetic drama.

These grid blocks will have to have a gentler profile or I’ll risk making the undulations across the whole grid too obviously regular.  

Above: Initial sketching and some possible profiles before testing in Rhino. The profile on the edge of the block will determine the height at that edge ONLY. The top surface can have areas, both higher and lower that the profile edge. Note that the profiles are NOT symmetrical. If I make them symmetrical then the overall piece will have a very regular appearance.

I want the profile to have a little variation so that each variation has some unexpected elements - a bit like the way the Thomas Martin piece works. 

Above left: By having a non symmetrical profile, a compromise has to be made. Above right: I have designed the blocks to tessellate like a chequer board. The blue blocks are a mirror image of the pink ones.

This changes it from being completely freeform to having a slightly more predefined structure. The interplay and possibilities are still very wide so I think the pay off is worth it to have a less regular surface.

Either end of the profile is at the same height. This means that I can alternate the edges at the corner. If the heights had been different then each tile would be sloping.  I’m hoping that this will give it balance.