Olga

Through a collaboration between MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab and Wood-Skin S.r.l. a revolutionary new type of furniture has been designed. The Programmable Table demonstrates an entirely new category of furniture that actively self-transforms from shipping to full-functionality.

This prototype, unveiled at the 2015 Fuori Salone del Mobile in Milan in collaboration with BIESSE, demonstrates the first highly-active and reconfigurable furniture that mediates between various conditions: shipping, storage and a variety of uses. Demonstrating transformation through the use of the Wood-Skin® process, this table takes advantage of an embedded pre-stressed textile to self-transform in precise and predictable ways. Once in-place this furniture may be reconfigured into other shapes or flattened again for storage and moving.

By minimizing the volume during shipping, the flat-packed Programmable product is extremely efficient and economical for distribution. Further, this product eliminates the need for human or machine assembly of complex parts and simple can be removed from the package, allowing it to dynamically jump into shape.

The Programmable Table is a new vision for the future of smart and self-transforming household products.

MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab has been developing and experimenting with brilliant products “aimed at reimagining construction, manufacturing, product assembly and performance.” The lab has researched areas such as bimolecular self-assembly, 4-D printing and even a self-assembly chair.

MIT’s self-assembly chair was dubbed the “furniture of the future,” but the lab may have outdone itself with a new product: a self-assembling table.