Reverse Engineer Joel Cooper Flagstone Tessellation

Reverse Engineer Joel Cooper Flagstone Tessellation

 This is a reverse engineer of a  flagstone tessellation designed by Joel Cooper. I do not know it's name. I was not aware of its existence until I was emailed by a reader (Jessie) asking for help solving how to fold it. 

I sent them a couple of diagrams. The first of which, I thought at the time was good, but was not right at all. Sorry! The second time, I was pretty close, but later realized, it was still not quite there. 

Finally, I decided to just try folding it myself to see if that could help me figure it out once and for all. 

The mostly successful result is shown above. It's somewhat scruffy because I was still solving as I was working the paper that I used to fold it. 

I will unfold it soon and use it to create a finished crease pattern. Then I'll upload it here. 

The design is three interconnected rhombus stars which are surrounded by open back hexagons. The design is repeated by adding new triads of rhombus stars. 

I found it a confusing pattern to reconcile. A great tip for working out advanced tessellation patterns like this is to use different colors to keep track of the various shapes and how they interact with each other. 

What still puzzles me about this tessellation, even after having completed it, is that my reverse side and that of the original don't match up. The fronts are the same though, as far as I can tell. 

It doesn't fit that well on a 32 pleat grid. It really needs something larger. But it's still pretty nice even on a small grid. I would even like to try folding it again sometime, now that I understand it better.  

Back view solving a Joel Cooper Flagstone Tess

Crease pattern added. For the trapezoids, fold over one onto the other. See second pic for where to fold over. . 

Crease pattern to fold this Joel Cooper Flagstone Tessellation



Where to fold over

Filed under: July 2025 Origami Tessellations
This has been an original post created by SolvingOrigamiTessellations.com

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