Origami Vela – Euroflora 2025 – Genova

Origami Vela

Euroflora, Genoa 2025

The installation Origami Vela originated from the idea of folding as a generative gesture. A surface with no tectonic or structural consistency found form and rigidity through the act of bending, turning the plane into a three-dimensional spatial system.

The project drew from the explicit reference to origami as the operation of folding a sheet of paper—a material that, in its initial state, possessed almost no structural capacity. Embracing that gesture meant attributing to the fold a role that was not merely formal: the fold became a rib, a device capable of stiffening the surface, giving it thickness, direction, and a recognisable spatial presence.

From a geometric standpoint, a flat surface could only be defined through the position of three points in space. This condition was interpreted through a decomposition and recomposition of isostatic triangles, used as the elementary vocabulary to describe the surfaces generated by the folding strategy. The folds thus acted as directional and structural vectors, indicators of the reciprocal position of the elements, revealing how the structure assembled itself by following lines of force that recalled the tactile and manual origins of the concept.

The final geometry emerged from the dialogue among these folded surfaces, direct memories of the initial gesture translated into an architectural scale. The transformation from surface to structure produced a form suspended between lightness and tension, almost like a sail anchored to the ground, capable of absorbing and expressing the lines of force that had generated it.

The project constructed a space that did not derive from a predetermined volume, but from a process: a surface initially devoid of structure that found consistency, direction, and material presence through its own way of folding.