origamic architecture Archives

Butterfly OA/Kirigami Pop Up Card

Somewhat stylized kirigami pop up pearlescent white paper butterfly with Celtic spiral designs cut into the wings. There is a flower design cut into the base, which allows the cobalt blue backing card to show through for the petals. Three-quarters above right view.

This pop up butterfly with Celtic spirals cut from pearlescent white stock with a cobalt blue backing was my 2024 holiday card.

Relic Light-Up Pop Up Card

A tall, thin metallic copper four-sided pyramid with curvy organic cut outs on each face sits on a slightly pearlescent dark blue surface. The pyramid is lit from the inside, visible through the cut outs, with the light diffracted into rainbow shards. Three-quarter view from a little above, highlighting one face of the pyramid.

I made a light-up pyramid pop up card with diffraction grating diffusers, and an improved switch mechanism for #LightUpPopUpTober!

laser LightUpPopUpTober origamic architecture paper art paper electronics paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Chibitronics Intervew

Chibitronics Meet the Maker: Andrew Crawford header

Chibitronics interviewed me (Andrew Crawford) for a Meet the Maker feature on their blog! Details on what I do, my background, and my process.

Celtic art OA origamic architecture paper art paper electronics paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

The Enchanted Forest

A pop up card made from cutting and folding a single sheet of stock depicts a stag standing framed by the convergence of rows of trees receding into the distance. The branches overhead form whirls and spirals. The background is a green textured paper (momigami) with the white card backlit against it.

A lone stag at the focus of a long forest tunnel of wild trees with spiraling branches is my take on a popular origamic architecture/kirigami pop up card theme.

Celtic art laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Spiral Crystal Light-Up Pop Up Card

Spiral Crystal pop up card fully open (360º). A yellow pentagonal lattice with triangular panels featuring Celtic triskelion designs is lit from within by a red light. The base card is a dark blue.

I made this abstract pop up card with integrated electronics for the 2024 #LightUpPopUpTober project organized by Chibitronics.

Celtic art Glowforge laser LightUpPopUpTober OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Folding the Dragon

Dragon origamic architecture / kirigami pop up card

This Lunar New Year marks the start of the Year of the Wood Dragon. I made a video walk-through of making my origamic architecture / kirigami dragon pop up card to celebrate.

Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop-up card

Dragon Pop Up Card

Original origamic architecture / kirigami pop up card of a dragon’s head.

Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Making of the Garden Lantern Electronic Pop Up Card

Garden Lantern Origamic Architecture / Kirigami with integrated electronics

The Garden Lantern Electronic Pop Up Card I made in 2017 was one of the first big projects where I shot video documenting the build. There was a lot of footage and, I wasn’t very comfortable with editing videos at that point. The raw video just sat in a folder for a few years. I have done a bunch of build videos since then and, it occurred to me that I could probably manage to pull the old video clips together into a build narrative. I have been slowly putting that together in the last few weeks and, it is finally done!

As I noted in my original post about this project, this was inspired by and based on work done by Jie Qi and Natalie Freed. The Chibitronics Circuit Stickers project made everything a lot easier.

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Snow Elf Manor Pop Up Card

Snow Elf Manor Origamic Architecture / Kirigami Pop Up Card

A stately origamic architecture / kirigami pop up manor for snow elves, sent for the 2021 winter holidays.

Celtic art Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

180-Degree-Open Pop Up Snowflakes

180-Degree Snowflakes Pop Up Card (2020)

I played with several variations of this snowflake design back around 2002. There were a couple 180-degree-open card variants that I liked. They were both designed to be cut as four panels that folded together to produce a card with an integrated backing. I had some limited access to a laser cutter for a couple hours to produce the cards. I ended up going with the simpler of the two designs for the production run. That one was less sensitive to smoke deposition and, less fragile.

I always wanted to play with the other design a little more and, in 2020, I finally did a run of those on my own laser.

Smoke deposition was still a challenge, especially on a stock with a pearlescent finish and a little tooth. There is almost always some trade-off with that sort of thing and expedient production. I chose not to apply all of the full repertoire of techniques for these, opting to reduce wear and tear on expensive work-holding mats and, to make production faster.