This project was to make a canopy for my daughter's outdoor wedding ceremony. The roof was botanically inspired; it's pleated like the leaf of a fan palm. The idea was that the pleated roof would be stiff enough to span without additional rafters. The ‘leaves’ would be connected with sewn hinges so that the roof could be folded up like an umbrella to transport it in the back of a car.

The leaves, which are made of thin plywood, twist along their length. At the center they are vertical and at the beam at the perimeter, they are folded out to make a flat angle. This was something I had learned through boat building; thin plywood, if bent in two directions, becomes very strong, like an eggshell.

The perimeter ring beam is made of two layers of plywood glued together and cut into a circle – its three sections are bolted together with lap joints. The leaves are stitched together in groups of three and then pulled down onto the ring beam with a rope from the apex of the leaf running through a hole drilled in the ring beam, and tied off.