Partial Similarity
Partially Similar investigates symmetry in architecture through an exploration of part-to-whole relationships found in centrally planned buildings. The project began with studying Ishrat Khaneh as a precedent, allowing an understanding of symmetry, centrality, and polygonal geometry to emerge through analytical drawings and geometric reconstructions.
While the whole remained a defining architectural figure, the project focused closely on the part—positioning contemporary ideas of computational variation within the historical lineage of centrally planned architecture. In alignment with the Woodbury University School of Architecture’s “Year of Housing,” the work uses the concept of partial similarity to reconsider the modern housing unit. Rather than relying on repeatable sameness, the project examines how slight variations within a shared geometric framework can generate new possibilities for how individual units relate to one another and to the larger architectural whole.
Through iterative geometric studies and digitally driven formal experimentation, the project tests how centrality and polygonal structures can organize a housing system that is coherent yet varied. Tthe work engages architectural geometry through both historical precedent and its contemporary computational applications—using partial similarity as a tool to propose inventive, flexible relationships between unit, cluster, and whole.