When a Fold Becomes a Mechanism
Text and Images by Siew & Yang Design Office
Paper folding is among the earliest and most intuitive gestures humans have made with material. Long before it became a decorative art or a design technique, it emerged as a practical response to limitation, a way of asking flat surfaces to hold, protect, and carry. Folding is, at its root, an act of necessity.
Through this simple gesture, paper gains strength, volume, and spatial presence without requiring more material. Thickness can be suggested, structure encouraged, and space quietly held. A single sheet learns to occupy the world differently by shifting its orientation rather than its substance.
In everyday life, folding allows objects to adapt. A map collapses into a pocket, a letter becomes its own envelope, packaging unfurls to guide the user. Folding creates movement between open and closed, flat and dimensional, concealed and revealed. It lets objects slip fluidly across states.
At its core, folding is a form of negotiation. It accepts the limits of a material and works within them. Nothing is added or taken away. Change comes from turning, redirecting, or reconsidering what already exists. This restraint echoes the principles of conscious subtraction, where more is found by choosing to do less.
Folding also introduces time into an object. A crease remembers the hand that made it and anticipates the next touch. It carries both the moment of its creation and the possibility of being undone. Folded forms remain open to change, never fully fixed, always capable of becoming something else.
What intrigues us most is how this element of time creates motion. Motion allows a single object to exist in multiple
states, each revealing a different form and a different function. Through folding, stillness becomes change.
The Cartd series explores these modest gestures on a single flat piece of card, showing how each fold can introduce new uses and new ways of engaging with the object. Through folding, even the simplest material discovers a different life.
The new Cartd series — Vessels — is the result of our exploration into activating multiple folds through a single motion. It examines how one input can set off a coordinated sequence of folds, producing a controlled mechanical response from a flat sheet. In simple terms, it allows a piece of paper to move in ways that go beyond the basic open-and-close action of a single fold. The outcome is a set of hinge-like forms that do not function as standalone objects. Instead, they operate as components that link separate parts, creating a sense of continuity that keeps those parts connected even as they move.
Furthering this inquiry, we began to consider what other functions these hinge-like forms could afford beyond simply connecting parts. One such outcome is the introduction of dimensionality, alongside motion. Some of these paper hinges allow flat cut-out silhouettes to expand into small volumes, giving them the capacity to hold and enclose. This is how the Vessels series was conceived: flat cut-outs of vases gaining an additional dimension through motion.