Anchored in the conceptual landscape, the Institute For Figuring is located on the edge of the Mandelbrot Set.

The most iconic of all fractals, the Mandelbrot Set has an infinite and endlessly varying boundary that encompasses a sequence of ever more minute incarnations of itself. Located in the mathematical space known as the complex plane, which is formed from the intersection of the “real” and the “imaginary” numbers, the Mandelbrot Set is surrounded by protean foam of mathematical forms. Within this region are figures resembling seahorse tails, fern fronds and vegetable florets - an unexpected landscape of seemingly organic structure.

The Institute’s address within this space has been chosen precisely, in a region known to local cartographers as “seahorse valley.” Technically, a “seahorse” consists of “a stalk protruding from a 'bud' of the Mandelbrot core, which reaches into a central 'eye' from which radiate an assortment of 'arms'.” Not all seahorses are alike. Proceeding down the valley’s cleft, seahorse characteristics change considerably.