Paper-influenced materials engineering has gained incredible momentum in the last few years as ancient and modern folding techniques get applied to modern materials:
The Miura Ori fold is a fascinating corrugation that takes large flat surfaces, divides them up into “shallow” parallelograms, re-arranges the creases into alternate rows of mountain and valley across the folded field to make a self-organising surface. Continue reading
Few Origami models reach Iconic status, few have the charm and grace of Eric Joisel’s Pangolin. I thought I would have a go at this fold:
Based, in part, on a field of diagonal graduated pleats that are “popped” into scaley plates, shaped simply to suggest tail, head and feet, his folds have a unique life breathed into them. Continue reading
Curved creases seem to do interesting things to stiff paper.
Paper tension that has been tortured by curved folds tends to force planes into curves and distorts geometry in interesting ways.
I had a huge offcut of Canson watercolour paper and decided to try Thoki Yenn and Josef Albers “Before The Big Bang” – an odd collection of concentric creases, alternating mountain and valleys. Continue reading
I have had sheets of Elephant Hide for ages, and read that it was really good for geometric folding (corrugations and tessellations), so set out to find something I could do as fold therapy:
Jeremy Shafer is a genius designer of origami action models and I had seen his series of collapsing “flashers” so thought I would give them a go. they are termed “flasher” because they are tiny when resting, but expand out in an explosion of pleats when you stretch them.
This is the “Flasher Hat” – perfect for the silly season where wearing paper hats seems mandatory. It combines the classic features of a flat flasher with special corrugations and crimps that raise a crown. Continue reading
I first noticed this lovely little fold nestled amongst the masterpiece that is Eric Joisel’s Musicians, and decided that i must try to work out how to make it:
Now the “purists” amongst you will recognise this as a “Concertina”, but that is splitting hairs, given a “Bandonéon” is square, this is clearly hexagonal, but I digress.
Presenting a tantalising hand-drawn crease pattern idea on his memorial website, I decided to try and work out a method for this fold.
Unlike the original, my design is based on a 32 x 20 grid, making an extra gather in the bellows section (which is not a bad thing) and a simpler join along the long seam (which, sadly, I still needed to use double-sided tape to close).
The geometry of this model is really nice – the bellows almost fold themselves when the creases are laid in – I experimented with the seam in and thought it looked better with the strappy seams out in the bellows.
fashioning handles at the end happens quite naturally if you have been neat, and folding it without any extra creases is possible if you concentrate, making the presentation fold very tidy indeed.
I have folded many of these, they are lovely and, now I have a handle on the scaling factors and geometry there is a knack to making them that is quite easy to pick up.
On the same hand-drawn crease pattern, there is another that supposedly makes a saxophone – might give that a whirl as I seem to be in a musical instrument frame of mind at the moment. very happy with this one however, and need to move on from it.
