Archinect - News

MIT researchers create strong, ultra-light architected materials using kirigami techniques

2023-08-24T14:02:00-04:00

Researchers at MIT have developed a lightweight architected material inspired by the cellular structures found in natural materials such as honeycombs and bones. Produced with techniques borrowed from the Japanese kirigami paper-cutting technique, the strong metal lattices are lighter than cork while also holding customizable mechanical properties.

Image courtesy of the researchers via MIT

Using kirigami techniques, the MIT team led by Professor Neil Gershenfeld of the Center for Bits and Atoms has produced plate lattice structures on a larger scale than was previously possible. The structures are described as "steel cork" by Gershenfeld due to their lightweight nature combined with high strength and stiffness.

“To make things like cars and airplanes, a huge investment goes into tooling. This manufacturing process is without tooling, like 3D printing. But unlike 3D printing, our process can set the limit for record material properties,” Gershenfeld said in a statement.

Image courtesy...

Harvard’s origami-inspired structures offer a future for pop-up or emergency architecture

2021-04-28T10:37:00-04:00

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed bistable inflatable structures inspired by origami, raising new possibilities for the future of emergency shelters, pop-up architecture, and even extra-terrestrial structures.

Many of today’s inflatable structures are monostable, meaning they require constant pressure to maintain an inflated state. A loss of pressure will return the structure to its original stable form – flat. The researchers at Harvard therefore asked “what if these structures had more than one stable state?” and set about developing a form that eould be just as stable inflated as it was flat on the ground.

The resulting design is inspired by origami and guided by geometry, developed through a library of triangular building blocks that can pop up, fold flat, or combine in different configurations to build closed, multistable shapes. “We are relying on the geometry of these building blocks, not the materi...

Origami-inspired "foldable office" addresses the mobile workspace

2020-10-01T13:26:00-04:00

WOOD-SKIN Inside, the think tank arm of WOOD-SKIN, a Milan-based team of architects, designers, and engineers has created a new product for the home worker. the Foldable Office is an origami-inspired workstation that helps users have more mobility throughout their work day.

The product is manufactured with high performance Biesse CNC Machines and sustainable materials.

The design enables users to pivot between a workstation configuration and a space divider through the folding nature of the assembly.

The product will launch live on Kickstarter on October 19th 2020.

Self-Folding Robot Based on Origami

2014-08-08T17:41:00-04:00

While still experimental, engineering techniques drawn from origami promise the development of pop-up devices that could assemble themselves from flat, composite materials cheaply and efficiently, the [Harvard and MIT] researchers said. Potential applications range from self-assembling satellites to shape-shifting robots that could be used in search-and-rescue missions.

Researchers at Harvard University and MIT have engineered a self-assembling paper robot inspired by the Japanese paper-folding artform origami. Since the journal Science published the report yesterday, the bots have been widely described as the "world's first Transformer."

On that note, paper bots...roll out!