Here’s an example of a tessellation with a backlight. A Star, Designed and Folded by Jun MitaniĬrease pattern available from Jun Mitani’s website These tessellations are kind of fractal in design with the pattern getting smaller towards the middle and larger towards the outside. This next image is a third type of tessellation called a Recursive Tessellation. Escher Stairs, Designed and Folded by Ilan Garibi Escher’s Ascending and Descending stairs artwork. Instructions available in Origami Tessellations: Awe-Inspiring Geometric Designs Double Triangle Sawtooth, Designed by Miguel Blanco Munoz and Folded by Beth Johnson

Here’s a flowery looking classic tessellation. Adulthood, Designed and Folded by Ilan Garibi You can see how the paper is folded into waves and is all one layer, especially when compared to the previous example. This next model is an example of a corrugation. Basket Weave Tessellation, Designed by Joel Cooper and Folded by Tom Crain (Photo by Evan Zodl) It was photographed at an origami convention. Our first image for this post is a basket weave classic tessellation. This post features a collection of mostly classic tessellations and corrugations. There are a couple other types of tessellations and even combinations of them in the same model. You can see the entire surface of the paper and it doesn’t look that neat to put a light behind it.

There’s always an odd number of layers since the paper needs to always be folded back on itself to continue the pattern.īecause different sections of the tessellations have different numbers of layers you can turn on a light behind the tessellation for some neat effects.Ĭorrugations are made with one layer and the tessellation pattern is formed with wrinkles and waves in the paper. The paper in these tessellations is folded into an odd number of layers to make the shapes and patterns. There are 2 major types of tessellations, the classic type and corrugations.Ĭlassic tessellations are usually based on either a square or hexagonal grid. Origami tessellations are essentially patterns, folded with origami, that repeat themselves as long as you want to continue folding.

Tessellation maker