Quarks in Hadrons and Nuclei

We propose a semi-empirical quark model of nucleon structure, so-called, Strongly Correlated Quark Model, SCQM, which possess the features of both non-relativistic and relativistic quark models. Based on SU(3) color symmetry it includes the main features of QCD: local gauge invariance, asymptotic freedom, and chiral symmetry breaking. This First Part of the paper is devoted to description of the model, SCQM, and in the forthcoming Second Part we will apply the model to built the nuclear structure. Applied to nuclei, it reveals emergence of the face-centered cubic (FCC) symmetry of the nuclear structure.This symmetry arise from quark-quark correlations leading, in turn, to nucleon-nucleon correlations.