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The idea of a hollow card or paper form buried in plain sand as a sacrificial mold for poured metal parts interested me. As the internet papercraft explosion has taught us, paper is really not a bad medium for 3D design, especially for the cost. Software like Pepakura will convert any 3D digital model into a papercraft one that can be printed out, cut out, folded up, and glued or taped together to make a reasonably accurate real-world replica of the original. What if, instead of using the paper as a positive representation, one were to use it simply as a negative space–a volume, supported by dry sand, that would survive just long enough to impart its form to molten metal poured inside?

As a first experiment, I designed a paper template for the pieces of a classic put-together puzzle often called “The Four Piece Pyramid.” The challenge is to use the four identical pieces to form a symmetrical three-sided pyramid. I chose this as form, first, because I think the puzzle is elegant; second, because all four pieces are identical so only one template design is required; and three, because the pieces are fairly simple, geometrically, and thus so are the templates.