  Existing Civil Engineering structures have limited capability to adapt their
configurations for new functions, non-stationary environments, or future reuse.
Although origami principles provide capabilities of dense packaging and
reconfiguration, existing origami systems have not achieved deployable
metre-scale structures that can support large loads. Here, we established
modular and uniformly thick origami-inspired structures that can deploy into
metre-scale structures, adapt into different shapes, and carry remarkably large
loads. This work first derives general conditions for degree-N origami vertices
to be flat foldable, developable, and uniformly thick, and uses these
conditions to create the proposed origami-inspired structures. We then show
that these origami-inspired structures can utilize high modularity for rapid
repair and adaptability of shapes and functions; can harness multi-path folding
motions to reconfigure between storage and structural states; and can exploit
uniform thickness to carry large loads. We believe concepts of modular and
uniformly thick origami-inspired structures will challenge traditional practice
in Civil Engineering by enabling large-scale, adaptable, deployable, and
load-carrying structures, and offer broader applications in aerospace systems,
space habitats, robotics, and more.
