Origamics In Architecture: A Medium Of Inquiry Or Design In Architecture

The Japanese craft of “origami” has proved itself as being a valuable tool to develop various engineering and design applications in numerous fields. Several patterns developed by Dr. Nojima Taketoshi ranging from environmentally friendly containers (pet bottles, plastic containers, cans and et. al) to medical applications such as stents, catheters, from vehicle parts to new insulation material configurations, from robotics to education are sources of inspiration for many other research studies (Hagiwara 2008). These wide range of applications has been named by Ian Steward as “Origamics” demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of these studies including mathematics, engineering, biology and many other possible disciplines which may use origamics (Stewart 2007). This paper aims to discuss the potentials of “origamics” in general, then in architecture, as an interface to gain cognitive experience on spatial transformations, computational design, form finding etc., and as a medium of inquiry for structural design in through the examples of kinetic or deployable structural designs in architecture.