Institute of Imagination Core activity
Core activity

Paper cities

Shapes and patterns from nature, folded into 3D paper buildings.

Craft
Type
10–15 min
Duration
typical. Nobody is moved on
7
Paper techniques
4
Core materials
What it is

The activity

Flat paper folded, cut and curled into small 3D buildings. Seven techniques turn a flat strip into a form that stands up.

Buildings go on a shared base, so the city at 17:30 is not the city at 10:00.

Theme

Biomimicry. Nature has already solved the structural problem and a designer borrows it. A child finds a shape in nature and builds with it.

Space. Here the city is a lunar base.

Explore

Geometry a child can pick up and look at:

  • circles in a sliced onion
  • hexagons in honeycomb
  • triangles in a leaf
  • spirals in a snail shell

The printed patterns are there when there is no real nature.

Device magnifier

The other activity on this station. A lens held on one of our phone cameras with Blu Tack. A leaf becomes a landscape, and the shape comes from there.

How it runs

Look closely. What shapes can you find?

Is it any of these?

  • round
  • six-sided
  • pointed
  • spiralling
  • ribbed
  • branching
Make

Examples

Two example boards, built and pinned up. Check both before the doors open and rebuild only what is damaged. Click a photograph to enlarge it.

The Paper techniques board: curls and loops in green, a fringed strip and quilled rosettes in red and purple, folded shapes in yellow, pleats and a fan in blue, and rolled tubes.
Paper techniques. Curls, fringe, quilling, shapes, pleats and tubes.
The second board: scored and folded strips in orange and yellow, a cut spiral and a rolled spiral, and three concertina and pleated forms in white and blue.
Folds and spirals. Scored strips, two spirals, three pleated forms.

Printed examples

On the table, beside the board.

A4

Models

Finished buildings on the table, made in the seven techniques, for a child to pick up and turn over.

Techniques

Try them before building anything.

Shapes

Fold a strip. Three folds a triangle, four a square, five a pentagon. Glue the tab inside.

Feet

Snip slits along the bottom and glue them flat to a base. Flat becomes upright.

Fringe

Lots of small snips two-thirds down a strip. Curl them round a pencil for grass or hair.

Pleats

Fold a strip back and forth like a fan. Stretched out it becomes stairs, a bridge, a flower.

Curls

Wrap a strip tightly round a pencil, release it, fold and glue the end. Towers, domes, spiral stairs.

Quilling

Make a shape from a strip, a circle, a square or a heart, then roll a second strip tightly and slot it inside.

Spirals

Cut round and round inside a shape towards the middle, then pull the middle up and stick each end.

Steps

  1. Pick a shape from nature. A snail shell, a leaf, a honeycomb.
  2. Decide what the building is for. A school, a shop, a library, a home.
  3. Make it, using one technique or two.
  4. Give it feet and stand it on the lunar base. That is the city.
  5. Keep going. Another building, a street, doors, windows, signs, tiny paper people.

What is your building for? Who is it on the moon for?

  • somewhere to sleep
  • somewhere to grow food
  • a school
  • a shop
  • a library
  • somewhere to look at the stars

Leave it on the base and it becomes part of our city. Or take it home. It is yours either way.

A finished building at step 4, at about ten minutes. Step 5 is where an hour goes, for a child who wants one.

On the day

Tinker beyond paper

Egg cartons for beehive walls. Half a plastic bottle for a dome. Bubble wrap round a tube for a textured wall.

Tips

A building that falls down needs a bigger base or thicker tape. Say it before it happens.

Kit

A pencil, and glue or tape. Fringe, curls and spirals all wrap paper round a pencil.

Setup

Materials

Core

  • coloured paper
  • coloured card
  • tape
  • scissors

Optional

  • white paper
  • pencils
  • glue stick
  • base to build on
  • egg cartons
  • cardboard tubes

Print

  • printed examples

Made in advance

  • example board

Setup

Reset between children

Offcuts cleared, scissors back in the pot, the surface clear enough for the next child.

The lunar base is not cleared. It is the one thing on this table that accumulates.

Safety
ChildrenScissors, throughout. Pencils, glue and tape.
AdultsNothing.
First aidCleaning wipes and plasters. The risk is cuts.
At the Science Fair the stall sits beside a staffed tool area and needs none of its tools, so the two should not share a table.
Notes