MEET THE MAKER
Architect by day, Artist & Techno geek by night —
Fox River Valley Architect, Japanese Arts enthusiast and world traveler — Hello, my name is Lane B. Allen.
I started practicing Origami at age ten and am self-taught. Many people know of my Origami dollar bill elephant that they receive as friendly gifts. Since 1995, I have been a licensed architect. I have been a principal architect since 2000 at our firm, Allen + Pepa Architects, in Geneva, Illinois. We work on a variety of project types of all scales, with a specialty of Adaptive Reuse of commercial buildings.
My previous unique Origami focus was what I coined Origane or “Fold-Metal” vs Origami which is literally “Fold-Paper”. The culmination of that effort was my 12’ high Family of Cranes. The “daddy” flying crane is a 6’ square of stainless steel mesh to create a 6’ wingspan crane. Mommy and Baby crane are scaled down accordingly. The blue accents were done with a propane torch.
Over the past eight years I have been secretly developing my side project, my Origami chairs, in order to obtain a design patent which was issued on July 7, 2020 (Patent #: US D889,151S). The patent is based on four different chairs that I personally designed and created utilizing the metamorphic process exhibited in Origami. In fact, I did not do any orthogonal drafting until I submitted for the patent. To be clear, these are not folding chairs, but rather chairs folded into their permanent form.
I am very interested in sharing my enthusiasm for this design process, surrounding myself with smarter people than myself like Lee Bernard (CNC), Steve Mahon (Fusion 360 3D-Drafting), my wife Rebecca who always inspires me, and Scott Pagels who rebuilt my shop. Your design input on what you would like to see in an Origami Chair can be sent to me by going to the ‘Contact us’ page. — Feel free to reach out if you are inspired by what I am doing and the products I am imagining.
— Lane Allen, AIA, LEED AP, BD&C