Eric Demaine is one of the better intersections of origami and mathematics, you should also read up on Dr Robert Lang, the OG and perhaps the most famous American JPL-physicist-turned-origamist: https://langorigami.com/
On the flip side the late Eric Joisel created perhaps the most amazing curved-crease and natural folding that we’ll ever see, his works were truly amazing art: https://ericjoisel.fr/en/home/
jmspring
Looking at Lang's site, yes it is a super niche area, but there is a lot of self promotion - books, events, etc. I was first introduced to the general area of curved crease, etc was with David Huffman in the early 90s. He started that work in the early 70s. So, Lang proclaims to the the first, but salesmanship is important.
I had him as a lecturer in undergrad, and I still remember the weightlessness of his intellect. It was one thing to realize that we were the same age, but his ability to flit around different concepts was remarkable.
There were a lot of people around who felt like high performance athletes of the mind, while he was just this sort of effortless butterfly going from flower to flower.
FuriouslyAdrift
Le Klint makes hand folded curved lamp shades that are prtty neat. They have workshops to teach people how to do it, too.
I bought Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson on a whim several years ago and found it fun to work through. I think he has a new edition and some other books but I don't have any experience with them.
colechristensen
I bought a few origami books on impulse today, Folding Techniques for Designers was among them so that's a good validation. I've vaguely wanted to make a fancy folded paper lamp for a while and seeing this on HN crystalized that desire into at least buying a handful of books. Thanks for the reference!
Which comes as a kit you put together (keep som clear packing tape handy... it can crack if folded to hard... lol)
srean
Curved creases aside, the fact that folding a piece of paper gives you a straight line is itself quite amazing and deep.
Even if I couldn't trust a cheap ruler, a straight edge is a piece of paper away.
ndileas
One of the underappreciated causes and effects of the industrial revolution is the precision that's around us all the time. To make that piece of paper required thousands of precision surfaces, rollers, etc.
Cerium
And oh how we take it for granted. I recently spent a few minutes trying to make sense of a situation where I was using a corner of a paper for a square. It turned out the piece of paper was not at all square, at least a quarter of an inch out of square!
bigiain
One important lesson I remember from high school woodworking class ~45 years ago - when using a set square, make your markings twice with the square flipped over in the opposite direction, so if the square isn't accurate you'll get two distinct markings - and for most wood working purposes just splitting the difference by eye will be accurate enough.
titanomachy
But folding any piece of paper will give you a straight line, no?
ndileas
Sure, this would probably work with nice handmade paper. But you won't necessarily get a clean fold with thicker or uneven paper, and depending on fiber length and distribution you might get waviness or other issues
chabska
traditional chinese paper making is way simpler than that, and produces quite reasonably flat papers.
TheCoreh
These remind me of the Elliptic Curve pieces from another post on the HN front page right now (https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=44315321) I wonder if the poster was inspired by that one to also post these here?
Anyway, these are pretty cool/unique looking! I hadn't seen curved origami like this before.
wonger_OP
Actually I was just pruning old bookmarks, and thought people would find this origami interesting. I hadn't seen the elliptic curves post -- thanks!
esafak
This duo must have the most fun job in all academia.
boulos
For folks interested in folding and origami, the documentary Between the Folds was excellent. I don't know if anyone recorded a Q&A when it did the film festival circuit, but if you could find one, it'd be worth watching.
The force from curved folds can be used in other ways. If you score a sheet of copper in a curved line, then fold it along the score you get a twisted form. If you have some poster board handy you can use the same technique as well. Vessels!
maomaomiumiu
Wow, I never realized you could create such intricate and beautiful structures with origami. This is seriously impressive work!
bdbenton5255
Wonderful, a nice meeting place between modern and classical art. Arguably one of the most alluring features of classical art is the complexity and intricacy of detail.
kazinator
> There is a surprisingly old history to curved-crease sculpture, going back to the 1920s at the Bauhaus.
That's surprisingly recent.
davidpfarrell
I don't know what I expected to see, but the site was full of ... Curved-Crease Sculptures ...
Beautiful just the same!
wiz21c
Now let's ask our not-yet-AGI robots to fold origami and we will see how far they go...
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mrybczyn
well, it's no banana duct taped to a canvas, that's for sure...
On the flip side the late Eric Joisel created perhaps the most amazing curved-crease and natural folding that we’ll ever see, his works were truly amazing art: https://ericjoisel.fr/en/home/
Eric himself reconstructs some of huffman's work - https://erikdemaine.org/papers/Huffman_Origami5/paper.pdf
It's an interesting area.
It looks like there's a more recent series as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4-cftqTcdI
There were a lot of people around who felt like high performance athletes of the mind, while he was just this sort of effortless butterfly going from flower to flower.
https://www.leklint.com/collections/pendants/products/le-kli...
https://www.ikea.com/ma/en/p/krusning-pendant-lamp-shade-whi...
https://www.leklint.com/blogs/stories/3daysofdesign-2025
An old promo showing some of the techniques they use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3T_il3Qphc
I bought Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form by Paul Jackson on a whim several years ago and found it fun to work through. I think he has a new edition and some other books but I don't have any experience with them.
Which comes as a kit you put together (keep som clear packing tape handy... it can crack if folded to hard... lol)
Even if I couldn't trust a cheap ruler, a straight edge is a piece of paper away.
Anyway, these are pretty cool/unique looking! I hadn't seen curved origami like this before.
That's surprisingly recent.
Beautiful just the same!