Set to make a debut at the Milan Design week is a down scaled prototype of a series of self-assembling furniture. An experimental project of Belgian designer and engineer Carl de Smet, the furniture design is computer generated and created from an innovate new age material, shape memory polyurethane (SMPU).
Carl de Smet has been working on this ground breaking project for more than a decade, which he compares to a step further than the familiar ‘flat-pack’ furniture kits, but without the inherent problems in assembling and transportation.
Each piece of furniture will be available as a take home option at just 5% of its eventual size. The customer then heats the pre-programmed material by plugging it into an electric socket, causing it to expand and become a rigid item of furniture, when it has cooled down to room temperature. In case of damage, each item may be re-shrunk, put through the same program so that it once again expands into a perfect object. In theory it seems like a great idea, no complicated assembly procedure, a reduction in storage space, shipping costs and efficient damage control. It sounds like a promising development which the designer hopes to have in production during the next year or so!
