Exhibition Workshop

Humanity has to revise its relations with the environment, on the ground, underwater and possibly on neighboring planets. Innovative approaches for the making of our built environment must take a central part in such a revision. Self-Morphing might be the paradigm shift in how we shape matter, towards a more sustainable future.

Traditionally, inhomogeneities, or differences,  are regarded as a source of instability, stresses and catastrophes. As such, these should be carefully avoided and eliminated, in order to preserve a system. But differences can drive unique and original outcomes that cannot occur in homogeneous systems. All is needed is a difference in reaction/thought, the desire for contact and flexibility.

We are a heterogeneous group of designers, physicists, artists and architects that flexibly interact and tightly collaborate. Together, we study systems where differences and incompatibilities are the source of emergence of 3D shape. Learning from Nature, we explore the concepts of self-morphing via geometric frustration. Unlike manmade structures, many natural organs « self-morph » via non-uniform growth or expansion of thin sheets of matter. In such systems, the 3D shape emerges as an outcome of the conflict between growth in different regions of the slender organ.

The field of self-morphing sheets was developed within the scientific community. It provides computational tools and guidelines that link between heterogeneous growth distribution and the emerging three-dimensional shapes. It is now ready for implementation as a new concept in the design disciplines.

A large-scale self-morphed structure of undulating partitions will delimit three imaginary environments; three futuristic landscapes, evoking the land, the underwater and the Marsian worlds. Each “world” will be composed of self-morphing systems, in different materials and scales: physical elements developed across our network, constructing a new imaginary Landscape. The magic of self-shaping, so evident  in motion, will be transmitted  through video projections of self-shaping systems, both from nature and from our labs. These projections will enhance the atmosphere of wonder in the three landscapes, demonstrating the creative power of well-managed differences.