Trees

By the end of November Kenneth from Fuso/Mercedes-Benz Denmark contacted me, asking if I could provide an origami tree for an event less than two weeks later. In fact, could I make 3? An interesting design task, and in nice cooperation with Kenneth the end result became this:

They were to deliver their first two electric city trucks for the Danish market, Fuso eCanter. The Danish minister of transportation, Benny Engelbrecht , would also participate in the event.

Eventually we agreed that there should also be a car under the the trees. The ones in the picture have about the right proportions, they are just not 6 m long, but like 5 cm.

Designing the trees took some effort. Luckily I didn’t show Kenneth the first attempt as it more looked like a crumbled mushroom, or something.

The road to the end result involved visiting the family in Randers. It is amazing how much you can get done in a 3,5 hours train trip. At home our dinner table (and much of the floor) was filled with (crumbled) paper most of the fortnight. I’m lucky to have a very patient wife:

However, pretty early on I settled on the two-piece trees inspired by Beth Johnson’s sheep using square tessellations (waterbomb pattern) for the wool. My trees got triangle tessellations instead which looks a bit more irregular and assymmetric. Ron Resch was among the first (the first?) to use this pattern.

And I experimented with paper colours and qualities:

For the event the white trees won out as they have a more futuristic look. And they became ready for the event:

And oh yes, they also asked for diagrams.

My sincerest thanks to Kenneth and Daimler.