WIllis Towers Watson, a global advisory, broking,and solutions company was looking for a fun staff activity, so they called Taro’s Origami Studio for a class.  They have taught classes of all types and sizes and here is a look into the origami modular class they the team!

First, Frank Ling the Manager and Head Teacher of the Brooklyn Taro’s Origami branch talked through the steps to build what is referred to as a modular.  This is a unit that if you replicate several of them precisely, they will fit together like puzzle pieces to create amazing shapes.  Here he is walking the team through the folding process and talking about the importance of accuracy in your folding

This is a view of the units and then several of the fun shapes you can make using different numbers of units.  The triangular shape uses only 3 units, the cube is 6 units, and the stellated octahedron is 12 units.  In all of these orientations the units fit together without glue to form the shape.

The team members all worked together to learn the units and help each other along the way.  Then, once each of them had created a few of the units, they could combine them to make something larger than if they were only folding a model for themselves.

Origami is a unique art form that has some strong parallels to teamwork and group building.  All of the units must be folded the same way so that the model can fit together smoothly, and in the end, the model is only as good as the weakest unit that is folded.  But by working together and helping each other along the way, the Willis Towers Watson team had a great time learning a new skill with applications to their everyday work life.