Our future homes are looking pretty cushy, you guys. From appliances that 3D print your dinner without dirtying a dish to a closet that updates your wardrobe on-demand and now, shape-shifting furniture that reacts to your mood. We feel pretty good about that.
Picture this: Your coffee table could notice you’re getting fidgety and turn into a plush ottoman. Your desk could rise with you every time you decide to stand. And if your sofa catches you snoozin’, it could morph into a roomy bed (studio dwellers, could you IMAGINE?). But it’s all for real-real starting with a table called Transform that you can conduct with hand gestures like a symphony.
The tiered table’s smooth surface is broken up by three sections of white pins that look just like those pin art games you used to press your hand into as kids. The pins are connected to thousands of motors that are programed to pop up and down at varying speeds depending on how you move over it: in the shadow of a horizontal chop, the table rumbles; under a gentle wave, it ripples like a puddle.
It can even morph on its own into a series of hypnotizing patterns and playful synchronized shapes that would no doubt engage your curious kiddos or help YOU, Miss Hyper-Connected, wind down to yogi-levels of clam. You kind of want one in your home now, huh?
While Ludacris has been rapping about this concept since 2003 (“When I move, you move — just like that”), MIT’s Tangible Media Group is responsible for bringing this user-activated furniture to life on display at this year’s global furniture showcase, Milan Design Week. Besides to provoke all kinds of mind-boggling ooh-ing and aah-ing, the idea behind Transform is to show just how seamlessly technology and design will — not can — WILL fuse in the future. Your table? That’s also an interactive computer, along with pretty much anything else we’ll come into contact with. So if you scoff at gesture-controlled gear now, know that soon, motioning to your furniture, switching on your jams or snapping to have your stovetop read you a recipe will all be completely normal.
What other amazing inventions would you trick out your future home with? Tell us in the comments below.
