Circle packings are beautiful and conceptually simple structures. The mathematical theory behind them, however, is anything but simple and offers magical theoretical results as well as algorithms for creating and deforming circle packings. In other words: they are perfect for parametric design experimentation.

The so called maximal hyperbolic circle packings are especially nice, since they are themselves contained in a circle. This project, which is my first attempt to make something out of these packings, resulted in an object cut from a copper sheet using a waterjet. The blueprint was generated from a circle packing with a randomized structure.

Circle packings can be transformed in a way that alters the radii of the circles while preserving the structure of the packing. Such a transformation was used to parametrically control the circle packing’s final shape.