The two char-ac-ters at the core of origa-mi (折り紙), one of the best-known Japan-ese words around the world, mean “fold-ing” and “paper.” You might well have guessed that, but giv-en the vari-ety and elab-o-rate-ness of the con-struc-tions pro-duced by origa-mi mas-ters over the past few cen-turies, the sim-plic-i-ty of the prac-tice’s basic nature bears repeat-ing. Those mas-ters must devel-op no slight degree of man-u-al dex-ter-i-ty, it goes with-out say-ing, but also a for-mi-da-ble math-e-mat-i-cal under-stand-ing of their medi-um. In many cas-es that under-stand-ing is intu-itive; in the TED-Ed les-son above, origa-mi artist Evan Zodl makes it explic-it.
Zodl’s les-son explains that “though most origa-mi mod-els are three-dimen-sion-al, their crease pat-terns are usu-al-ly designed to fold flat, with-out intro-duc-ing any new creas-es or cut-ting the paper.”(Incidentally, the Japan-ese word for paper art involv-ing cuts is kiriga-mi, or 切り紙.)
An “abstract, 2D design” thus becomes, in the origa-mi mas-ter’s hands, “a 3D form,” but only in accor-dance with a set of four sim-ple rules Zodl explains. He does so clear-ly and under-stand-ably — and in a way that for many of us may exhume buried geom-e-try-class mem-o-ries — but like actu-al works of origa-mi, they’re bet-ter shown than described: hence the vivid accom-pa-ny-ing ani-ma-tions of Char-lotte Arene.
Origami’s prin-ci-ples and prod-ucts may be fas-ci-nat-ing to con-tem-plate, but “the abil-i-ty to fold a large sur-face into a com-pact shape” has also proven to have seri-ous real-world appli-ca-tions. Zodl points to an origa-mi-based re-imag-i-na-tion of “the tra-di-tion-al stent graft, a tube used to open and sup-port dam-aged blood ves-sels.” This in addi-tion to “airbags, solar arrays, self-fold-ing robots, and even DNA nanos-truc-tures” — as well as a mas-sive “star shade” for space tele-scopes that blocks the glare of near-by stars. If you’d like to get start-ed on your own tac-tile under-stand-ing of all this, do have a look at Zodl’s own Youtube chan-nel, as well as oth-ers like Origa-mi Instruc-tions. Don’t let the elab-o-rate-ly fold-ed flow-ers, boats, or ani-mals you’ve seen intim-i-date you; start with a sim-ple box and work your way up from there. If origa-mi shows us any-thing, after all, it’s that com-plex-i-ty begins with sim-plic-i-ty.
Relat-ed Con-tent:
An Origa-mi Samu-rai Made from a Sin-gle Sheet of Rice Paper, With-out Any Cut-ting
A Data-base of Paper Air-plane Designs: Hours of Fun for Kids & Adults Alike
MIT Cre-ates Amaz-ing Self-Fold-ing Origa-mi Robots & Leap-ing Chee-tah Robots
Design-er Cre-ates Origa-mi Card-board Tents to Shel-ter the Home-less from the Win-ter Cold
The Mak-ing of Japan-ese Hand-made Paper: A Short Film Doc-u-ments an 800-Year-Old Tra-di-tion
Based in Seoul, Col-in Mar-shall writes and broad-casts on cities, lan-guage, and cul-ture. His projects include the Sub-stack newslet-ter Books on Cities, the book The State-less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen-tu-ry Los Ange-les and the video series The City in Cin-e-ma. Fol-low him on Twit-ter at @colinmarshall or on Face-book.
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