Origami Heaven

A paperfolding paradise

The website of writer and paperfolding designer David Mitchell

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Silverhexahedra
 
Hexahedra are solids which have six faces. In modular origami the most commonly encountered hexahedral form, apart from the cube, is the silverhexahedron, whose faces are all silver or isosceles right angle triangles.
 
Polyhedra
 
  Name: The Sonobe Hexahedron aka Toshie Takahama's Jewel

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: First discovered by Mitsonobu Sonobe in the 1960s but popularised in the West in the early 1970s by Toshie Takahama who called it her 'jewel', (because it is possible to string several together to form a necklace).

Diagrams: On-line diagrams are available on the Modular Designs page of this site.

 
  Name: The Corner-Pocket Sonobe Hexahedron is essentially the same design as the Sonobe Hexahedron but made from corner-pocket Sonobe modules instead of standard Sonobe modules.

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: Diagrams for the Corner-pocket Sonobe module were first published in Origami for the Connoisseur by Kunihiko Kasahara and Toshie Takahama in Japanese in 1985 and in English in 1987, where it is called the Tomoko module.

Diagrams: On-line diagrams are available on the Modular Designs page of this site.

 
  Name: The Letterbox Hexahedron

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: David Mitchell, 1987.

Diagrams: On-line diagrams are available on the Modular Designs page of this site.

 
  Name: The Sonobe Delta Hexahedron can be made by combining three Sonobe delta modules.

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 triangle modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: David Mitchell,

Diagrams: Not yet available.

 
  Name: Snap Hexahedra - silverhexahedra made from Sonobe, Corner-pocket Sonobe, Sonobe Delta or Letterbox modules can be collapsed flat then popped back into shape.

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry:

Designer / Date: Larry Hart published a single-sheet design for a snap hexahedron in the late 1980s. It seems obvious that the same principle could be applied to a modular hexahedron but I am not aware of knowing about this before I came across the idea while playing with snap silveroctahedra in 2015.

Diagrams: Not yet available.

 
  Name: Molly Kahn's Hexahedron - an elegant and clever design made from three delta modules. Many decorative variants are possible.

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 triangle modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: Molly Kahn, 1960s

Diagrams: First published in the Origamian Vol 7 Issue 4 of Winter 1967. Also found in Paul Jackson's Origami Christmas Tree Decorations - British Origami Society booklet 20 - 1982.

 
  Name: The Zeta Hexahedron

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: David Mitchell, 1990.

Diagrams: In Building with Butterflies - David Mitchell - Water Trade - ISBN 978-0-9534774-7-0.

 
Modular Sculptures
 
  Name: Tricorne - a distortion of the Zeta Hexahedron in which both right angle corners are inverted to the centre point.

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: David Mitchell, 1998.

Diagrams: In Building with Butterflies - David Mitchell - Water Trade - ISBN 978-0-9534774-7-0.

 
  Name: Ariadne 3

Modules / Paper shape / Folding geometry: 3 modules from squares using standard folding geometry.

Designer / Date: David Mitchell, 1990.

Diagrams: Not yet available.