Wood-Skin, a sandwich of wood panel and flexible fabric material, is being developed into furniture and wall panels. A hanging strength test is documented in the video below for vertical surface applications.
In a collaboration between MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab and Italy's Wood-Skin S.r.l. a new category of furniture has been designed - a Programmable Table brings that actively transforms itself, from flat shipping to full-functionality. Wood manufacturing technology firm Biesse is technical sponsor for the project. A prototype was
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| One Piece Wood-Skin Panels Mould Onto Furniture Designs | Testing Wood-Skin Panels for Tensile Strength |
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.
Via a number of transformations through the use of the Wood-Skin process, this table takes advantage of an embedded pre-stressed textile to turn into precise ways. Once in-place, the 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. Furthermore, this product eliminates the need for human or machine assembly of complex parts and can simply 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.
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