That’s the basic idea behind “origami engineering,” an emerging technique in structural engineering that’s based on a centuries-old Japanese art form.

Nature uses folding to manufacture some of its most intricate creations, from flowers and wings to protein and DNA. What if humans could do the same?

Folding as a way to bookmark pages, Zhang says, conjures the idea of origami. In recent decades, as the study of how materials can fold and deform becomes more important in micromaterials, ...

Portland-based design studio Ilovehandles has created wrapping paper that has an afterlife as an origami figure to avoid the mess and waste associated with ripping the paper off presents.