The Thesis · math × geometry × fabrication

A formula is a form waiting to happen.

M0-MAD is built on one bet: the equations behind nature and structure are not illustrations of form — they are form, one step from being built. This page is the thinking underneath the studio: the mathematics it stands on, the makers who prove the shape, and where an equation-object practice is going.

Play the Equation Lab → The M0-MAD hub →

Give the tool away free. Make every equation-object a link you can open, fork, and loop. Then put the craft into the things that cannot be copied — made-to-order objects, fabrication-aware design, and teaching. The math is the moat; the making is the business.

The foundations

The mathematics it stands on

Six research pillars — the geometry that lets an equation become a smooth, curvature-aware, buildable object in the browser. Each is a family of tools most CAD software keeps locked to experts.

Discrete Differential Geometry

One operator — the cotangent Laplacian — underlies smoothing, curvature heat-maps, minimal (soap-film) surfaces and geodesic layout. Build it once, and a whole family of hard-to-copy tools becomes reachable.

Implicit & Minimal Surfaces

Marching cubes turns any F(x,y,z)=c into a watertight, printable mesh — and unlocks the gyroid / Schwarz lattices that are the most commercially proven “math object” of all: lamps, screens, acoustic panels.

Architectural Geometry

A clean pipeline — panelize → beam-and-node structure → mould-reuse optimisation — converts any equation surface into flat panels and a fabricable gridshell. This is what makes a form quotable.

Make-Buildable Solving

A compact constraint solver, running live in the browser, relaxes any mesh under toggleable shape rules — planarise, rigidify, equalise — so a form can be made buildable before you export it.

Folding & Deployable Geometry

Inverse design — a target 3D shape resolved back to a flat crease/cut sheet — gives dual deliverables: a flat DXF kit and a folded object. The curved-crease look is the most cinematic, lowest-competition wedge.

Generative & Procedural Form

Whole new classes of form: simulated fields (reaction–diffusion), rule-rewriting structures (L-systems), and the press-worthy 2023–24 aperiodic “hat” monotile — each a new object to build and a new hero to film.

The lineage

Who proves the shape

No one else combines equation-first + fabrication-out + browser-native + design-grade + film. But each piece of the practice is already proven by makers worth learning from.

Nervous Systemstudio · productFree in-browser generative configurators (Cell Cycle, Kinematics) whose every output is always printable and priced in real time — you buy the made-to-order object, not the file. This is almost exactly M0-MAD’s shape.

3Blue1BrowneducationExplainer films whose visuals are the mathematics — all drawn by Manim, a library he wrote and open-sourced, spawning an entire ecosystem. The Equation Lab is a Manim analogue for objects.

Bjørn Staalbrowser artOne un-screenshottable interaction — particles reacting across two separate windows — captured as a clip and open-sourced the same day. Proof that a single “how is that possible?” moment can define a maker.

Bees & Bombsgenerative loopsNear-daily, flawless, seamless geometric loops with an unmistakable signature. The public feed is the portfolio — exactly the cadence the seamless-loop export is built for.

Bathsheba GrossmanobjectsMetal-printed mathematical sculpture and affordable laser-etched crystals — the maker who owned the words “mathematical sculpture.” The lesson: name your category early.

Zach Liebermandaily practice · teachingDaily coded sketches kept since 2016 as an honest studio journal, not a storefront; co-creator of openFrameworks; a teacher. Authenticity converts later — and teaching builds a cohort.

Shadertoy · Desmos · GeoGebratool platformsFree browser tools where every creation is a permalink, an embeddable widget, and forkable source, with public galleries. The pattern M0-MAD follows: keep the tool free, sell the making.

Research → shipped

Already built into the tools

This isn’t only a plan. The parts of the thesis that could ship, have — try them live in the Lab.

Forkable permalinks

Every equation-object is a full-state URL — equation, parameters, camera, even your typed formula — that reopens exactly as shared.

Shipped · open the Lab →

Seamless social loops

A one-tap turntable export that loops perfectly — the feed-native asset the whole audience strategy runs on.

Shipped · open the Lab →

The equation sings

Each form composes its own generative track from its own integers — bass, arpeggio and Euclidean drums — and it bakes into the loop. Or drop a track and watch the form dance.

Shipped · open the Lab →

Also shipped: node-glow illumination that walks any form’s nodal lines, a “clad” vein layer that turns line-forms into printable objects, and STL / GLB / Rhino .3dm fabrication export from every equation.

Where it’s going

The roadmap

From a free tool and shareable objects, to the implicit-surface core that unlocks the printable lattices, to a fabrication-aware layer that turns any form into a buildable, quotable deliverable.

Near · 0–3 moTurn the Lab into a self-marketing, forkable, feed-native machine, and ship the first sellable objects with pipelines that already exist.

Near-mid · 3–6 moBuild the one piece of infrastructure — the marching-cubes implicit core — that unlocks the most modules and the most commercially proven objects.

Mid · 6–12 moConvert forms into quotable, buildable deliverables — a fabrication-awareness layer — and open the commission and editions lanes.

Long · 12–24 moClimb from solo portfolio to category-defining studio, via one hero demonstrator, one authoritative partner, and the open tool.

One step ahead

The bold moves

Ship the tool, not just the objects

Open the Equation Lab as a free, forkable, embeddable tool — a Manim / Shadertoy for equation-objects. Every derivative creation becomes an ad pointing home.

Own “aperiodic order”

Be the first browser studio to sell printable single-tile objects from the 2023 “hat” monotile — a genuine 60-year breakthrough, and the freshest earnable-press hook available.

The cross-device film moment

One impossible-looking interaction rendering a single equation-surface across two phones — captured as a cinematic 15-second clip. The jaw-drop shot an architect-filmmaker is uniquely built for.

Open to

Collaborations & conversations

The practice grows through partners. If any of these is you, I’d love to talk.

Fabrication labsmake + shipMetal / resin 3D-print bureaus and material houses to fulfil made-to-order equation-objects and TPMS lattices, and to co-produce one photogenic first-of-its-kind demonstrator.

Galleries & fairscontextA design or collectible gallery, or a design-fair slot, to place limited equation-object editions in a collector and museum context.

EducatorsteachingArchitecture schools and course platforms for a workshop on “equations → architectural form,” taught on the free Lab.

Distribution & pressreachOne high-status feature or collaboration — a maths channel, or an architecture and design publication — that borrows authority and unlocks distribution in a single move.

Editions platformscollectGenerative-art platforms for numbered, hash-seeded editions, each paired with a physical object and certificate.

Get in touch

Build a piece of the thesis with me.

Commissions, computational-design collaboration, installations, teaching, and bespoke objects. Remote and on-site.

Start a conversation → Play the Equation Lab →