Fashion designer Iris Van Herpen explored the power of water and air in her latest Haute Couture collection entitled "Aeriform", but a team of researchers (Jifei Ou, Mélina Skouras, Nikolaos Vlavianos, Felix Heibeck, Chin-Yi Cheng, Jannik Peters and Hiroshi Ishii) at MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group has opted to mainly focus on the properties of air with their aeroMorph project.
Launched last year, the project revolves around the possibilities of developing origami-like structures in various materials integrated with inflatable devices that can give them programmable shapes.
Imagine having sheets of paper, plastics or fabrics and adding in these materials air passages in the shape of geometric patterns (the team experimented with stripy, square and polygonal structures).
Thanks to a software tool (controlling the aspect ratio of three geometries - the line, arc and diamond), the team created multiple programmable shapes and geometries coming up with a range of fabrication methods, including manual sealing, heat pressing with custom stencils and a custom heat-sealing head that can be mounted on 3-axis CNC machines to fabricate the designed transforming material.
The technology could be applied to a wide range of objects and items, from interactive wearables to furniture (in a way this is a new take on Skylar Tibbits' self-assembling structures), toys and items for the packaging industry.
There are a few online videos that make the process easier to understand and a lecture as well based on a paper the team wrote about the system.
The paper actually shows three examples of objects to which the technology has been applied: a shape-changing package for a light bulb that can be transformed from a 6-sided box cushion to a curled lampshade; a fabric origami crane that folds from a flat sheet to a 3D shape, and haptic gloves for biking that allow cyclists to navigate without taking their smartphone out (the left glove inflates to turn left, the right gloves inflates to turn right).
The researchers hope to create in future inflatable metal sheets with programmable transformations, but also wearable fabrics that can be encoded with shape changes.
While this universal bending mechanism can indeed be useful in architecture to create temporary structures for pavilions or for emergency purposes, or in the automotive industry to develop new airbags, the applications of multiple shape-changing materials may inspire both extraordinary fashion designs or useful garments with new and practically functional purposes.
Some of the researchers in the team developed a while back Biologic, a synthetic bioskin that can regulate the wearer's heat and sweat by opening and closing flaps in the material as needed, so they do seem to have an interest in fashion. Maybe, before developing complex clothes and garments it would be easier to work on smaller objects and experiment a bit with them, from jewellery to flat-pack shoes or bags that can change shape and size. The possibilities behind this technology may not be unlimited, but they would surely and intriguingly lead brave fashion and textile designers in uncharted territories.
Comments