SA, A Uniquely Designed Umbrella That Uses Origami Principles To Eliminate the Need for Metal Support Spines

New York City-based designer Justin Nagelberg has come up with the SA, a uniquely designed umbrella that uses the principles of origami to eliminate the metal support spines that are found in traditional umbrellas.

Like origami, The SA uses planar tension to generate its form. The inner and outer canopies expand and compress in unison to open and close the umbrella. This new design allows the umbrella to be lighter, since it does not need the added weight of an inner metal skeleton. Also, since there are no exposed, moving components, the umbrella is stronger and will last longer. Furthermore, since the material is flexible when not in tension, it can easily bounce back into shape when exposed to high winds…In addition to this, another nice feature of the umbrella is that it has more headroom underneath the canopy, since there is no metal structure taking up space.

Justin has partnered with Nooka founder Matthew Waldman and they are are currently raising funds through Kickstarter in order to bring the SA umbrella to market.

Opening and Closing

Open SA Umbrella

Open SA

Closed SA Umbrella

Designs 1

Designs 2

images via Nooka

via Boing Boing

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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