Rio de Mouro

The Rio de Mouro metro station is four stops from the end of the Sintra line headed toward downtown Lisbon, Portugal. Like many places in Portugal, the colored azulejos tiles on the wall of the station add a mood and character to the space. The tiling patterns are simple repeated patterns of triangles and squares. Seeing the pattern at a distance and with differing angles of light, shadow, and the inevitable loss of tiles over time reveals the subjective nature of standing and observing a piece of art. Each viewing is an experience of its own.

This project is a reimagining of the experience of seeing such a tiling on the wall - one I enjoyed during my three months spent living in Sintra, Portugal during early 2023.

Through changes of scale, probability based recursion, and palette, the initial tiling design on the wall in the station is evolved into a series of pixels and tilings across a larger composition. It reminds us that even in the most structured compositions, there is room for spontaneity and unpredictability.

The palettes for this project are sampled from photos I took at Rio de Mouro and elsewhere in Portugal, as well from other photos taken on the way to my current home in Santiago, Chile.

The minter can modify the number of tiles in the pattern, the probability of recursion occurring, the palette, and different iterations of the algorithm based on the current settings. The minted edition will be the same as the version shown in the fx(params) panel.

Press ‘c’ to toggle coloring page mode - a view of the tiling with only black and white lines

Press ‘s’ to save a high resolution PNG of the canvas.