This study suggests that the nuclear structure determines the atomic properties and proposes a geometric nuclear model to confirm this. The model contains the advantages of the liquid drop, shell, collective and cluster models and can serve as a starting point to an effective field theory process. The main goal at this stage is not necessarily to obtain more accurate results than existing models, but rather to raise the possibility of a tangible interpretation of nuclear and atomic physics and to explore different perspectives of this idea. According to the model, the nucleus generally has an ellipsoidal shape, made up of a three-dimensional lattice of proton-neutron bonds (treated here as a cubic system) and nuclear shells populated by protons, which resemble the atomic shells of the periodic table. The excess neutrons (those not paired with protons) are in the nuclear envelope. First, it is shown that the model is empirically confirmed (to a good approximation) via nuclear mass calculation and a consistent development of the nuclei with filled sub-orbitals. It is then argued that the periodic system is derivable from the model. Furthermore, the spatial nuclear structure is shown to correlate with the covalent atomic radius, and this potentially implies that the nuclear structure determines the atomic properties.