At the beginning of the pandemic, I bought myself a copy of Ilan Garibi’s wonderful book “Origami Tessellations for Everyone”, but looking through recently I realised I had not folded many of the wonderful designs before, so set about remedying that:

This is a SINGLE molecule of the “pineapple” tessellation. After a simple set of diagonal pre-creases are imposed on a square grid, the first level collapse is really satisfying. You then have to perform a transformation (essentially turning part of the previously collapsed part inside to create the final structure.

You can then inside reverse the “scales” and you have a lovely form that resembles the body of a pineapple, kind of. The molecule tiles a number of ways – given it lies on the diagonal, you can either tile them in X or O formation – I chose to do a 4-molecule O form, just to see how difficult it was dealing with the interactions, but it turned out fairly easily.

By spacing the molecules correctly, and arranging them in an X you can create a rather lovely “Dish” that is dimensional, stands freely, has a satisfying volume and most importantly gives you free paper to shape pineapple “tops” to act as legs.

It was a fun fold, particularly if you accurately place the pre-creases, and get them in the right orientation (mountain/valley) before you attempt the first collapse. It is a terrific addition to the “what can I do with a square grid” pile.

I must explore more, Ilan’s work is well described, challenging but fun to fold.