Conceptually speaking, this project began very organically, but I’ll elaborate on this at a later date. Practically, it was a matter of hammering out the correct approach from initial drawings. I knew from the start that I would be connecting two identical structures at the base to achieve the “palindrome”, so I began by constructing one form. The difficulty is that (and I learned this as I went) in a built structure with a spiral plan, certain dimensions remain the same – specifically those to do with the profile. The spiral as manifest in nature is essentially a coiled tunnel of hoops of regularly increasing dimensions. This pattern is easy to recreate – in fact its the first thing many of us do when we pick up clay for the first time as children.

The main difference with this iconic tower form is that the profile and thickness of each “tier” is the same height and depth respectively at any given point. These dimensions are the constant dimensions, and every other measurement changes incrementally as you work your way up the structure. I decided early on to concern myself with the gross structure first so I could work as organically as possible. I began by reducing it to a hierarchy of tiers: As there is a distinct hierarchy of levels in profile only (such as a painted depiction…) this was a labour – intensive approach, but there was no other way I could see to achieve a faithful or precise model. Also, it inevitably meant ignoring the surface, which would lead to problems down the line.

I constructed each tier separately, working from the plan of a circular graph I rendered in a web-based graph designer, on which I also marked the calculated necessary incremental deviation (from a circle) marked off at 15-degree points of the compass. In practise this meant working with two great discs of plastilene, carving each tier from alternating discs to achieve a stack of tiers, with enough “underhang” to support the tier above.