Origami Tessellations

Pecten Magellanicus, Redux

Originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

A while back I folded a three-dimensional shell shape from some pleats, which I called “Pecten Magellanicus” (Sea Scallop), mostly due to the fact that it really looked like one.

I really liked the initial piece I did, and I wanted to see it realized on a larger scale. There’s a lot of pleating involved, so I decided to start off by folding four of them together, and then see where I wanted to take it from that point.

Here’s the initial version:

Pecten magellanicus, work sketch

However, in creating the second version, I didn’t properly sort out the ratios for the pleats. On the initial sketch, the rectangles that are used to create the pleat fan have a ratio of 2:9, for width:length. This made the shell shape fold almost flat when made with 7 pleats. On the larger version, I made a miscalculation and it ended up closer to a ratio of 1:5, which means the pleat fan extends farther upwards and is not as close to the flat plane of the paper on the ends. Thus the difference in the sides on this piece compared to the initial work sketch. Oops.

Anyway, this piece really isn’t close to finished, there’s a lot more that needs to be done with it. I’m not really happy with the ends of the pleat fans, so something needs to change there. There’s also a lot of extra paper and pleats in the middle that should probably have something interesting come out of it- no reason to leave good pleat space empty. Also, the whole thing hasn’t been wetfolded at all yet, so nothing is locked into place or flattened yet- thusly the bulbous appearance. Once it’s finished it should properly lay flat.

Just thought I’d share this with you since it’s going back into the “unfinished” box until after the New Year. Too much work to do right now to play with this any more, and give it the time it deserves to come out right.

-Eric

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Living under the Sea

Originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

I read a strange article about “whale fall” yesterday, and part of the discussion involved specialized species that capitalize on such events.

The one that really caught my eye was “bone eating zombie worms”.

So, needless to say, I had bizarre dreams last night about what a bone-eating zombie worm would look like, and this morning while working on some paperfolding I ended up with this purely by accident.

It looks a little friendly, so perhaps it’s a vegetarian zombie worm?

No doubt it has nothing in common with the carnivorous bone-eating variety, but it looked enough like an ocean worm of some sort for my tastes.

What sort of interesting intermediate shapes do you come across while folding? I always like to play with the pleated paper like this before I go on to fold other things with it. Maybe sometimes it’s OK for us to just stop at this point and admire it as-is?

I’m in love with this design.

It’s from REISER+UMEMOTO, an architectural design firm, done for an international competition in the U.A.E. for one of Dubai’s mega-complex plans.

You can navigate through the site (it’s under “projects” and then “Aeon”) or hit the link directly to the project page here.

Wow. I didn’t know that people designed things like this. I’m enthralled.

square_weave_project_5.jpg

Originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

Uses offset square twists in the back to make the open squares in the front.

As mentioned on the flickr page- Where did I first see this? Is it yours? I have seen it many places, but I can’t seem to recall (or find) the first one I ever saw.

If you have folded this, and have a copy online, would you consider posting a link to it in the comments for this blog post? Or if you don’t wish to do that, I’d also be happy to hear from you via email- you can reach me at origomi@mac.com.

-Eric Gjerde