I have had this model on my “to do” list for ages – I had shied away from it because of what I perceived was a brutal precreasing sequence and impossible collapse:
That said, with a little large scale and some accurate pre-forming, the laying of the corrugations was fairly straightforward – all based on halves. Laying crenelations across these were fiddly in low light, and had I realised they would be angle bisecting squares later then I think I could have been more accurate. Continue reading
David Huffman is a bit of an origami enigma it seems – he pioneered a bunch of tessellations and surface corrugations and seems to be one of the first to explore curved creases and their bizarre effects on flat sheets:
This is is “Arches” tessellation, an intriguing offset brick valley folded grid that then has parabolic mountain folds at each intersection. The resultant sheet is really hard to tidily collapse (in my experience) – perhaps it was the paper or the scoring technique I used to form the parabolas, or perhaps it was the parabola itself – with no guidelines I just sort of guessed a curve.
You get a sort of waterbomb base forcing one trough deep into the arch of an adjacent fold – when it is tidied up it is fascinating – I could see uses for this as an interesting textural pattern or ambient light panel as it makes funky patterns when backlit. Continue reading
Now I am as much a fan of Game of Thrones as the next person, but I do like a good ice zombie as a baddie:
This is Nick Robinson’s “Hairy Man”, but I think it is much more demonstrative of an icy undead monster. Continue reading
I saw a photo sequence of a tessellation that was fashioned into a box and knew I had to try it:
Well, I say tessellation, but really this is just one molecule, but it is none the less beautiful. Continue reading
It seems to be the season for buying houses. A couple of my work colleagues have, individually, in the last little while purchased houses:
The “Great Australian Dream” apparently is to own your own home – this seems irrefutable proof that it is still entirely possible. Continue reading
I was doodling with a 17cm square, divided into an 8×8 grid and collapsed, via a photodiagram (and a bit of wrestle-magic) into a curious but possibly useful surface corrugation/tessellation:
With an exercise in patience, fold accuracy and layer management, a “swastika”-like collapse becomes a sunken 4 segment recess, then the edges tidy up with some propagatible pleats, making this tesselatable. Continue reading
Further exploring Shuzo Fujimoto’s “Hydrangea” fractal, it seems they can also be tessellated:
This is a 4x fold, but I have seen many many more, closer together also, interweaving and other mind-boggling combinations.
This fold has taken an age – started 4 days ago, finished yesterday (I had already decided on the spring shoot for yesterday’s fold) it is a lovely frame. Continue reading
Browsing a MiniNeo eZine that I follow, I noticed a rather interesting looking hexagonal flower and thought it worth a try:
You triangle grid a hexagon into 16ths, then put a hex twist in the middle, then add the swing-back on petals and tidy up the tessellation to make a swirl. Continue reading
I cannot believe I have not tried this before:
A lovely hexagonal tessellation in one corner of a hexagon becomes the fluffy tummy, collapsing the body makes for lovely eyes and a pair of crenellated wings. Continue reading
Starting with a square-twist tessellation, you add to the intensity by folding it some more:
Alternating spin squares with stars, you get this nightmare of paper torture. Continue reading
Assignment time can sometimes be boring for a teacher, especially when kids are beavering away independently:
This is a tessellation I have not tried before. Based on a square grid, diagonal squares rotate 45 degrees to lie flat again, causing pleat ripples that are cancelled out by adjacent twists – clever. Continue reading
Brickwork tessellations are a bit of work, but it is nice to see a model that uses the tessellation as the texture of another structure:
This is Ichiro Kinoshita’s “Fireplace by Brickwork”, a torturous fold that requires a ton of pre-creasing and as the scale I chose (square cut from an A3 sheet), the final crease lines end up about 4mm apart on fairly heavy paper – not, in retrospect, a good choice. Continue reading
This torturous little bugger of a tessellation seemed to eat paper like nothing else:
Shuzo Fujimoto’s design of a clover-like tessellation that spreads from a central point is an interesting exercise in layer rearrangement, resulting in a lovely eye-popping pyramid-like structure that has dimensionality. The resultant folded form is much less than a 1/4 the size of the original sheet and is very dense in places and is naturally concave on the underside. Continue reading
Another time sponge, based on a square grid initially that was torturous to fold and pre-crease. Based on Eric Gjerde’s tessellation molecule, it is an amazing use of paper that features largely an “all at once” collapse.
Many tessellations sit flat while you do them, their interim stages are still flat – not this mongrel. Once you start, you gotta finish and then work out how to flatten – interesting but not very portable in the end. Continue reading
I spend a lot of time waiting for students to ask for assistance during practical assignment lessons. This is a good thing – if they do not ask and are skilled enough to work independently then I have done the right thing, so it is all grist for the mill. (When kids need help but do nothing about it is much less good, but again a choice the student makes):
This is my first attempt (and probably last) at Eric Gjerde’s “Stacked Triangles” tessellation, based on a triangle grid that had a 6mm spacing. Continue reading
