Quicksand Origami Tessellation

Quicksand Origami Tessellation

 This is a wacky one. A just to see if I can pull it off kind of tessellation. For the most part, I was able to do so successfully. Could be better, but it's a tough one. 

It's basically just layers upon layers of elongated hexagonal folds around open back hexagons. 

I used thin paper because I figured I would never be able to layer everything using anything thicker. 

When I first plotted it out using a small grid of only 16 pleats it seemed so easy and worked beautifully. However, as with many tessellations, adding more repetitions made it exponentially more difficult. 

The crease pattern looks pretty innocent, but it's anything but. 

As I was folding it, I found myself wondering if maybe medium thickness paper might've been a better choice. 

Most of the folds are mountain folds with the exception of the open back hexagons and a set of convergence points. In the diagram the blue dots indicate where the paper should be tucked under.

When I drew it I used right triangles around the hexagons to get orient myself. But that's not totally accurate to how to actually fold it. The red lines illustrate how the open back hexagons axes should connect to the external array. They are mountain folds. I believe I also used gaps that were one pleat larger than shown. 

Diagram to fold Quicksand Tessellation

I briefly considered making the repetitions even further apart, but what would be the fun in that?


This has been an original post created by SolvingOrigamiTessellations.com

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