Shape language

Cyberparadism favors simple geometric primitives and biomimetic geometry, often repeated across structures. The shapes are read as both aesthetic, because they are clean and legible, and functional, because they are efficient, modular and sustainable. Below is the working vocabulary.

• Sphere
  Habitats, craft, pressure vessels. Closed and complete.
• Dome
  The enclave's signature. Shelter that admits the sky.
• Cone
  Spires, towers and antennae reaching out of the canopy.
• Pyramid
  Monumental calm. Stable mass against wild terrain.
• Hexagon
  Enclosure and efficiency. The emblem's frame.
• Helix
  Life engineering made visible. Ramps, towers, growth.
• Lattice
  Glazing, shells and structure. Repetition without clutter.
• Ring
  Atolls, stations, orbital terraces. A centre held open.
• Branching
  Fractal columns and canopies. Structure that grew.

How the shapes combine

• One dominant form per structure. A dome is a dome; a tower is a cone or a helix. Buildings that are three shapes at once read as cluttered.
• Repetition across the enclave. The same primitive at several scales ties a settlement together: a large dome, smaller domes, dome-shaped pavilions.
• Lattice as skin. Hexagonal or triangular lattices appear on shells, glazing and bridges. They let a large enclosure look light.
• Biomimicry where the structure grows. Branching columns, helical ramps and fractal canopies suggest that the building was cultivated rather than assembled.
• Rings hold space open. Atolls, toruses and ring stations are enclosure without a roof: the center stays a lagoon, a garden or a view.

What the shapes are not

Not brutalist mass, not rectilinear office slabs, not the exposed trusses and pipework of industrial science fiction. Right angles exist but recede; the eye should land on curves, facets and lattices. Where a rectangle is unavoidable, it is low, long and set into terrain.

Using the vocabulary

For makers, the shape list doubles as a checklist. A scene with a dome, a lattice and a ring is already most of the way to reading as Cyberparadist, provided the landscape around it is big enough and wild enough. The emblem of this site is a hexagon for the same reason.