Usually origami calls to mind paper swans, but these meticulous sculptures by father-son duo Martin and Erik Demaine will make you completely rethink folded paper art. This is self-folding, pre-creased origami. Yes, it’s wonderfully nerdy.
Here’s the principle of curved origami sculpture: Paper will fold itself into all kinds of crazy shapes based on how it’s creased. The Demaine’s have spent an inordinate amount of time studying how this works because, the principles of the phenomenon apparently aren’t well understood (despite the fact that they trace experiments with curved origami back to the 1920s). Oh and did I mention Erik Demaine has a PhD in Computational Origami?
In addition to being beautiful works of art, the pre-creased origami are experiments in an ongoing series of tests in which the Demaines are searching for a total understanding of the system. Let’s hope they never find it. [Eric Demaine via 10 Times One via Laughing Squid]
