Being Creative: Akio Hizume, an architect of mathematics

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Roger Penrose. I believe that most puzzle lovers like, for example, the Penrose triangle. If you love what Roger Penrose has accomplished, I am very sure that you may be interested in a guy who designed lots of mathematical things. His name is Akio Hizume.

If you had attended the International Puzzle Party 30 (IPP Osaka + Hakone 2010) you might have met Akio. He was one of the lecturers in Osaka and held a workshop on "Pleiades." Pleiades had been displayed in various places. Here is one of the huge Pleiades hanging from the ceiling of a church in Switzerland. Unfortunately, it is not there now.

GIANT PLEIADES
http://starcage.org/giantpleiades_jp.html

Two pictures below were taken at Marunouchi Building which is in front of the Imperial Palace, Tokyo. It looks like a Christmas tree. The star is Pleiades and the Christmas tree part is Fibonacci Tower which is also designed by Akio.

Fibonacci Tower
http://starcage.org/marucube/marucube.html

There is one interesting story. Akio put a bulb inside Pleiades and threw it from the 6th floor of the building (Depending on the countries, it would be the 5th floor due to there being no ground floor in Japan). The ground he threw on was covered by concrete, yet Pleiades and even the bulb did not break. Isn't it amazing?

According to Akio's guessing, the Pleiades itself became like feathers and worked as a parachute, falling at a constant speed, and cushioning the bulb to protect it.

He has designed so many things, so I present here Akio's other works. This is Sunflower Tower, 8 m high (26.25 ft). It is constructed with 150 bamboo stalks woven into a double spiral.

Sunflower Tower

He attended the 9th Gathering for Martin Gardner (G4G9) and made Mumagari 600 and it was also displayed at the local library lobby in Atlanta, U.S.A.

Mumagari 600

Akio occasionally gave lectures at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and these pictures show what he had made there.

He is an architect, therefore, of course, has designed some buildings. Those small models are tea houses that he designed.

Akio designed an architectural prototype based on the plant's phyllotaxis spiral. This is my personal opinion, but some of his architectural models seem to have a similar concept as Islamic architectural design. What I mean is those designs have mathematical beauty.

In the last, I introduce the Fibonacci Turbine.

The paper of Origami Fibonacci Turbine
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342344343_ORIGAMI_FIBONACCI_TURBINE

This time, my blog became longer because Akio has so many original designs. I reckon his keen insight into form and mathematical sense will lead him to create even more original designs in the future.

Like he attended the IPP30 as a lecturer, he has been attending many events worldwide. If you have any questions or would like to ask him to make something his originals, please contact him directly.