Innovation of the week: A self-assembling table

From The Idea Factory, our special report on innovation

Furniture
(Image credit: Courtesy photo)

"Good news for lazy people," said Liz Stinson at Wired. "We're one step closer to buying furniture that will assemble itself." A team of researchers at MIT's Self-Assembly Lab partnered with Italian design studio Mamma Fotogramma to create the Programmable Table, "which transitions from flat to fully built with a gentle tug." The key is Wood-Skin, a technology that mills "complex tessellated geometries" into wood, allowing it to "fold into shape like origami."

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