Well, this was a fun, if annoying to program one. I've optimised for area in my 2 weeks of experience on this game, but never on something quite like it. 
With a lot of iterations I was able to bring it down from 34 to 33 to 32 to 31 to 29.

I'm 100% sure people will beat me on cycles, but I must be somewhere close to min area. Right? RIGHT?

EDIT: lol nope, I got it in 28, then 27, then 26. Then I started optimizing cycles. Someone help me I can't stop