News

The Fold-Up Boat

July 2, 2013
Oru Kayaks in the San Francisco Bay. Photo: Oru Kayak

Anton Willis, Alumni of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, has reinvented kayaks for urban dwellers with his inception and production of "the world's first origami kayak." Willis' was inspired by a New Yorker article detailing the latest advances in the art and science of origami. Willis launched Oru Kayak on Kickstarter with a successful campaign resulting in 473 boat orders and $43,806 in pledges.  Willis also won a design award from Metropolis magazine for his idea called Lunar-Resonant Streetlamps that are designed to respond to the availability of moonlight. Using the cash prize as seed money Willis co-founded a design collective called Civil Twilight with his wife and business partner Kate Lyndon. Read more here.