ORIGAMI: TENSION AND COMPRESSION

The invention of the Wire Wheel (1975) was a tensional integrity, a perfect system (synergy, or the behavior of the whole is predicted by the behavior of the parts) that could worked because tension and compression were acting together, the same way as in Buckminster’s Geodesic Structures (from studies of beam and column, he could establish new structures).



I had worked with polyhedron origami for a couple of years, making installations. I had solved a lot of problems related with structures, since these type of work don’t use any kind of glue, or other way to put the modules together, but using the same cavities of the folds, and considering the scale I use is big enough to have a person inside its structure, tension and compression in working with geometrics and origami, had made me think, work out and solve hundreds of “compression-tension” problems to remain the truth of this ancient practice (its own grace), and dealing with some big troubles sometimes in art exhibition who is people.
People standing inside, trying to guess the material, talking aside…
The whole structures I had worked on are made of folded paper (thick, big size papers), making modules, for then put them together and making these big geometrical structures.




Tension and Compression had become an issue in my work, because an origami structure will only support itself when all the parts are put together. Here tension plays the most important role; each module has to wedge or match into the next one.
It’s a system; it depends on each part to stand the whole.