Designed for empty warehouses or buildings under construction, these material-light shelters provide functionality for liminal interiors either past their prime not yet in use. Places like the infamous Tower of David, a restarted project previously inhabited by skyscraper squatters, would be an ideal candidate for this sort of system.

A polyethylene-coated metal grid frames these modest shelters, serving as walls and doors and supporting interior shelves and an exterior fabric facade. A plastic-laminated plywood floor floats above concrete or whatever raw surface is found in a target structure. Nylon nets provide a degree of privacy while letting in light and can be covered by opaque cloth as well.

Each dwelling can be completed with just $1200 and while no heating or cooling is included the system is intended to work well in tropical or other climates supporting open-air living. Since a stable roof and floor are provided, the main task is simply filling in gaps for habitation.

All(zone) drew inspiration for their Light House from traditional architecture of Thailand, often designed to be collapsed and moved as needed.

The light and flat-packable materials make it easy to ship these systems in conventional containers or other forms of transit, making them suitable possibilities for emergency shelters as well.

The designers tested their prototype by deploying it in a parking garage and staying within their mockup module for a few nights.

Imagine a shelter that unfolds itself in the rain, flat-pack furniture that deploys without instructions or tools when exposed to water or a temperature-sensitive spoiler for your sports car that bends and twists as you race and turn – thanks to MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab, all of these designs may now be within reach.

This reactive approach adds a new dimension to objects made of wood, metal, carbon fiber and other materials, each fabricated according to patterns that in turn react to external inputs like low-tech robots. These creations can transform in shape dynamically, responsive to customizable cues and environmental conditions – heat, cold, dryness and wetness can all be turned into catalysts for a conversion.

Dubbed “four-dimensional printing” by Skylar Tibbits (Research Scientist in MIT’s Department of Architecture) due to the added element of time, this material strategy has proposed applications in various fields ranging from domestic (self-assembling furniture and toys) to vehicular (car spoilers and aircraft wings). Imagine as well, though, apparel that shifts to block rain or allows wind to cool you, or buildings that likewise open to ventilate or let in light and heat based on the weather.

The leap here is as much conceptual and experimental as it is intrinsically revolutionary. As Wired reports, “The tools Tibbits and company use are not especially novel. In the case of the carbon fiber projects, the manufacturing process is thoroughly two-dimensional. The team starts with a carbon fiber roll that follows the typical warp and weft pattern. A secondary material, formulated in Tibbit’s lab to respond to changes in temperature, is spot-printed on the mesh using a CNC gantry. As the carbon fiber is exposed to heat, the temperature-sensitive material changes shape and causes the sheet to deform in ways specified by the designer.”

More on MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab: “Self-Assembly is a process by which disordered parts build an ordered structure through local interaction. We have demonstrated that this phenomenon is scale-independent and can be utilized for self-constructing and manufacturing systems at nearly every scale. We have also identified the key ingredients for self-assembly as a simple set of responsive building blocks, energy and interactions that can be designed within nearly every material and machining process available. Self-assembly promises to enable breakthroughs across every applications of biology, material science, software, robotics, manufacturing, transportation, infrastructure, construction, the arts, and even space exploration. The Self-Assembly Lab is working with academic, commercial, nonprofit, and government partners, collaborators, and sponsors to make our self-assembling future a reality.”

Kristine Bjaadal creates objects with hidden stories to tell – everyday objects with secret tales shown only under strange circumstances, such as tabletop spills or time-worn seating.

A small change making a big impact on the future is known as the butterfly effect. In this case, the accidental tipping of a glass reveals a flock of butterflies lying invisible but in wait right on your tablecloth, titled Underfull.

Or consider the inevitability of fabric wearing thin on your favorite upholstered chair – what if that almost-invariably negative process were turned into something positive, via, say, a pattern that emerges as the surface material layer gets slowly stripped away, named Underskog.

Along similar lines, but requiring less time (but perhaps some until you or your guest notices it), are these so-called Undertone dishes with out-of-sight rings of color below their raised edges. It is only when picked up – or better yet: spotted in reflection on the top of a table – that these tones become clearly visible.