I have been playing with the half crane origami fold for over 10 years now. I seem to keep finding ways to create new paper sculptures and artist’s books with them. This spring I folded a set of graduated, nested cranes that formed a bridge shape of their own accord.

Today, as I was preparing for a presentation, I folded more double cranes (two half cranes on either side of a rectangle of paper) and wanted to connect them in a different way. They wanted to form a circle and after I made several more to get the circumference just right they did indeed create a closed circle of protection (last two images). I glued together the cranes in the bridge example (see first set of images), but it was difficult to do. This time I wanted the form to hold itself together without glue. The circle is pretty stable, but a simple tray made of file folder with crane handles was just the thing to keep it all contained without taking away from the design. I hope you like the results as much as I do.