Constructive Geometry with Steve Bass, Part II

By 天美传媒天美传媒

May 3, 2022

Architect and author Steve Bass presents the second part of his Constructive Geometry course, originally taught in-person at the 天美传媒 but made available here in digital format for the first time.

This is the second part of a four-part course. In Part I viewers learn how to draw lines using constructive geometry. The subsequent sections of the course are now available as well: Part III and Part IV.

In this session, viewers will be working with regular polygons: polygons whose sides are all equal, whose internal angles are all equal, and whose points all fall along the same circle.

Physically drawing these geometric constructions will help the viewer to understand these mathematical relationships. Viewers are encouraged to download the accompanying booklet below and actually draw the constructions demonstrated in the video. Only a straightedge and a compass are required to draw the constructions. Rulers, protractors, and triangles are not necessary, though they may be useful for checking one’s work.

Resources

Course Booklet

Course Commentary

In This Video

Click on the chapter markers in the video above to jump to each section. The chapter topics are listed here for reference.

Use the label number of each exercise to locate it in the course booklet. Not all exercises in the booklet are covered in this video.

[00:20] Introduction to Part II

[00:46] Construction 2.1 - Construct a square given a side

[05:21] Construction 2.2 - Construct a square given its diagonal

[09:14] Construction 3.4 - Construct an octagon within a given square

[13:06] Construction 3.3 - Construct an octagon given a side

[19:56] Construction 2.4 - Construct a pentagon within a circle

[28:48] Construction 2.5 - Construct a pentagon given a side

[33:58] Construction 6.3 - Construct a Golden Section spiral

[45:21] Discussion and demonstration of self-similarity in the Golden Section

[48:42] Conclusion

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