Hybrid Closed Islands Origami Tessellation

Tiling Surprise

Believe it or not, Hybrid Closed Islands has the same tiling structure as Robin Scholz's Celtic Circle.

Both of these tessellations feature twists with six pleats (hexagon twists) surrounded by twists with three pleats (triangle twists) and vice versa.

However, when you look at Hybrid Closed Islands it's easy to see only triangles - because the six-pleated twists only have three-fold rotational symmetry.

Centering Choices

In this tessellation, I have three equivalent choices of what to put in the center, and whatever I put in the center will be emphasized in the pattern.

Each of these three options is centered on a grid intersection, so I can choose up until the moment I put the first twist on the rotated grid.

However, each of these three options has only three-fold rotational symmetry and I will never be able to get all six sides of a hexagonal sheet to be exactly the same.

Even so, there are some pseudo-hexagonal structures available and if I fold this tessellation again I'll likely put the very open triangle in the center to get these hive-like effects.

Inscrutable

Even though I've told you that there are hexagon-type twists here, can you spot them?

The strongest tell is seeing too many pleats, too many triangle twists, coming out of what looks like one corner of another triangle twist.

The twists with edges on grid lines are the sneaky ones here - just like the hybrid square twist, the closed parts of the hybrid hexagon twist are tucked underneath, hidden from view.

Difficulty

The Hybrid Closed Islands tessellation has earned a 5-star complexity rating for its use of advanced twists - the hybrid hexagon and very open triangle - and also for the unusual use of the classic hexagons and triangles tiling.

That said, the difficulty is mental instead of physical and everything can still be folded from the grid.

One of the trippiest things about this tessellation is that the bars appear to go straight through the pattern, weaving over and under each other, disappearing behind the large triangle holes and reappearing on the other side.

It's not at all what I expected to see in a tessellation of this complexity - usually there's some offset - but it was a very welcome surprise!

If you'd like to try folding this tessellation yourself, the crease pattern is available for immediate download after purchase.