This project started when our new intern The Charlie joined us at FC for a short stint. As usual, I was doing some research on food and design projects while talking about random ideas with her when we somehow thought of making food origami. We initially wanted to stick a few pieces of paper together to construct different food shapes, but we wanted more of a challenge. After figuring out what to make, The Charlie and I decided to make a durian. We researched sites to figure out the structure from scratch. It was a day for origami enthusiasts like us to get busy pressing play and pause on polyhedron tutorial videos while patiently folding sonobes. Surprisingly, that makes us happy...we're weird that way.



This durian structure is made up of a number of identical sonobes, or ‘pieces’. Making this model involved constructing and folding the appropriate number of pieces and then assembling them according to the pattern.



After making a few different models, we finally figured out how many sonobes were needed to make a decent sized durian. It took us about a week to fold 270 sonobes from 2x2 inch paper. Well, it shouldn’t be too long if you are willing to sacrifice your entire weekend. But we suggest you take your time and fold them while watching football (like we did, during the World Cup!). After this, the assembling process can be done in 30 minutes!



In order to assemble all sonobes into a durian, you have to understand the pattern of the polyhedron you are building. Always keep track of the number of peaks/points that you are assembling because if you lose track then the ball you construct will not close in on itself. Please refer to this site (thanks Stephan Lavavej for making our lives easier) for clear instructions on making this ball. If you notice, the pattern of the 5 (five) peaks within the 6 (six) peaks resembles pentagons within the hexagons of a football.



Wait… it's not durian after all. After spending days making it, we realized this texture is more like a jackfruit instead of a durian. So we decided to name this jackurian - marrying jackfruit’s thorn and durian shape.



Intrigued to make this? If you have plenty of free time and patience, I say go for it! Just remember not to pick it up and sniff it like I did. Old durian-picking habits die hard.