Its 24 vertices are all on the 12 axes with 5-fold symmetry (i.e. each corresponds to one of the 12 vertices of the icosahedron). This means that on each axis there is an inner and an outer vertex. The ratio of outer to inner vertex radius is , the golden ratio.
It has 30 intersecting rhombic faces, which correspond to the faces of the convex rhombic triacontahedron. The diagonals in the rhombs of the convex solid have a ratio of 1 to . The medial solid can be generated from the convex one by stretching the shorter diagonal from length 1 to . So the ratio of rhomb diagonals in the medial solid is 1 to .
Note that the order-5 square tiling is dual to the order-4 pentagonal tiling, and a quotient space of the order-4 pentagonal tiling is topologically equivalent to the dual of the medial rhombic triacontahedron, the dodecadodecahedron.