Taro’s Origami Studio Takes Flight Again

A New Chapter in Large-Scale Origami

After more than six months of planning, designing, testing, and folding, Taro’s Origami Studio is taking on a new and even more ambitious challenge: SOAR, a massive origami installation created for St. Andrew Methodist Church in Plano, Texas.

After seeing the flock of more than 1,000 origami doves at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, St. Andrew reached out to the Taro’s team in early 2026 and asked if they could push the concept even further.

For St. Andrew’s 40th Anniversary, our team is creating more than 2,200 hand-folded origami birds, including both doves and cardinals. The finished installation will fill three of the church’s sacred spaces—the main sanctuary, Hasley Chapel, and Smith Worship Center—creating the feeling of entire flocks taking flight throughout the church grounds.

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FROM GEORGIA TO TEXAS

The Atlanta dove installation taught Taro’s an enormous amount about what it takes to create large-scale origami artwork for an enormous architectural space.

That project required more than two years of collaboration between Taro’s Senior Designers Frank Ling and Ben Friesen and the team at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church.  The team developed oversized doves, experimented with different rigging systems, created custom netting, and ultimately installed more than 1,000 individual birds high above the congregation.

SOAR gives our team an opportunity to apply and expand upon the large-scale production, spatial planning, and installation experience gained in Atlanta.

The new installation would be larger, more complex, and spread across multiple spaces. And instead of one species, the flock would feature two very different birds.

The dove would represent peace, while the cardinal would bring a distinctly local and symbolic presence to the installation, as the bird has a special resonance with the congregation, and the founders of the church.

SOAR features original dove and cardinal models by renowned origami artist and Taro’s Origami Studio founder Taro Yaguchi. The models form part of a unified visual language for Taro’s large-scale suspended origami installations, combining the distinctive geometry of folded paper with the visual presence required for large-scale display.  The designs of the dove and cardinal featured in SOAR are also the subject of pending U.S. design patent applications.

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MODELS AND MODIFICATIONS

One of the biggest differences between the Atlanta project and SOAR is scale.  The Atlanta installation featured more than 1,000 doves, and SOAR will feature more than TWICE that amount.

Every single one will be cut, folded, prepared, strung, and placed by hand.  That means thousands of individual pieces of paper must move through the studio before the installation can ever begin. And with thousands of birds involved, every crease matters, every placement needs to be precise, and every attachment point needs to be secure.

The result is a remarkable combination of traditional origami craftsmanship and the logistics of a large-scale production operation.

To show the vision to the leadership team of St Andrews, Frank Ling took a site visit to the church, took measurements, and created 3D renders of the the entire project in the church spaces.  Every single one of the birds was meticulously placed in the renders and perfected by the team to make sure everything looked right.  Here you can see the proposals for the main space.

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And here you can see the edits and modification to get the Hasley Chapel installation to work seamlessly with their electrical grid.

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PRODUCTION

Once the designs were finalized, the project moved into full production.  This is where the studio becomes less like an origami workshop and more like a small-scale manufacturing operation.

Paper is cut, models are folded, tails and wings are shaped, attachment points are prepared, birds are wired, and then the process begins again.

And again.

And again.

With more than 2,400 birds to produce, the work has truly become a true team effort.

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THE RIGGING SYSTEM

Of course, folding the birds is only half the challenge- the other half is figuring out how to make them fly.

As we learned during the Atlanta project, an installation of this scale requires an extensive rigging system. For SOAR, the birds will be individually attached to large nets positioned above the congregation.  Rather than installing each bird individually from a lift high above the floor, the netting system allows large sections of the artwork to be assembled at a manageable height before being raised into their final positions.

Each bird has a specific location within the overall composition. The length of its suspension line determines its vertical position, while its location on the net establishes its position within the flock.  This turns thousands of individual pieces of origami into a carefully engineered three-dimensional composition.

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BROOKLYN TO TEXAS

After months of design, folding, engineering, and preparation, the birds are finally leaving Brooklyn. More than 2,400 hand-folded birds, custom rigging components, nets, support structures, tools, and months of work are now making their way to Plano, Texas.

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 The origami installation will begin the Week of Sunday August 30, and we are thrilled to share the progress and results with everyone.

The birds have left Brooklyn.

Now it’s time to make them fly.

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