“Brisbane Tessellation” reimagines the city through a highly conceptual lens, transforming its mapped reality into a continuous, repeating geometric field. The urban fabric is mirrored along two axes and tessellated to generate a rhythmic surface where streets, rivers, and blocks become modular units within a larger spatial system. This process shifts the reading of the city from a fixed geography to a dynamic pattern, one that oscillates between order and abstraction.

The work is constructed through the overlay of four distinct cartographic layers of Brisbane: heritage maps from the 1840s, contemporary spatial data including a Digital Surface Model (DSM), and flood risk mapping. By systematically altering the order in which these layers are combined, four unique variations of the tessellation are produced. Each variation reveals different spatial hierarchies and relationships—sometimes privileging historical traces, at other times foregrounding topography or hydrological risk—resulting in subtly shifting interpretations of the same city.

Drawing from Persian traditions of geometry and ornament, the work references the logic of tessellation found in historic Persian carpets. In these carpets, repetition, symmetry, and intricate patterning construct a sense of continuity and spatial infinity. Brisbane’s urban grid is translated into this visual language—its infrastructure becomes motif, its planning becomes ornament, and its landscape is absorbed into a system of interconnected forms that echo the meditative and highly structured qualities of Persian design.

The resulting composition operates both as map and textile surface: a distributed pattern capable of extending across space, while still retaining traces of place. Fragments of the city emerge and dissolve within the tessellated structure, blurring the boundary between representation and decoration. This tension invites a reconsideration of Brisbane not as a static entity, but as an evolving pattern shaped by movement, memory, and spatial logic.

Through the fusion of contemporary urban mapping and Persian tessellated aesthetics, the work situates Brisbane within a broader cultural lineage of pattern-making. It becomes an urban carpet—where geometry, repetition, and variation transform the city into a tactile and visual meditation on connectivity, growth, and the hidden order embedded within the built environment.